Publication Confirms AxoSim's Nerve-on-a-Chip® Technology Embodies Key Nervous System Functions Needed to Speed New Drug R&D

NEW ORLEANS, July 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AxoSim, Inc., the premier provider of neuroscience discovery platforms that mimic the structure and function of the human nervous system, today announced publication of a new  study¹ of its Nerve-on-a-Chip^® technology in Nature Research's Scientific Reports. The Nerve-on-a-Chip platform uses bioengineered living human cells in a 3D environment to accurately recreate the nervous system in both form and function. The study shows that the Nerve-on-a-Chip platform accurately provides key physiological readouts that are needed for clinical neurology and in vivo neuropathology testing. Importantly, it is the first to demonstrate myelination of human nerve cells using human Schwann cells, and also shows that the Nerve-on-a-Chip technology achieves key electrical and structural metrics.

Michael J. Moore, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and head of the Neural Microengineering Laboratory at Tulane University, is a co-author of the new study and an inventor of the Nerve-on-a-Chip technology. Dr. Moore noted, "Development of organ-on-a-chip systems for neuroscience applications has lagged. Yet there is great need for tools to accelerate the slow pace of new drug R&D for neurological disorders. We developed the Nerve-on-a-Chip technology to give researchers and drug developers a biomimetic model that would provide human data much earlier in the process, thereby saving time and money and allowing researchers to focus on candidates with greater potential. This study confirms the success of our work with our collaborators at AxoSim in creating a powerful tool for human neurology translational and clinical research."

The study confirms that the Nerve-on-a-Chip platform is the first all-human in vitro model with the demonstrated capability to measure critical factors that were formerly only available using live in vivo models. These include robust axonal outgrowth, myelination of human stem cell-derived neurons by primary human Schwann cells and evaluation of nerve conduction velocity. The clinically relevant electrophysiological and histological metrics generated by Nerve-on-a-Chip can help elucidate new drugs' mechanism of action and uncover the basic mechanisms driving nerve pathologies, such as toxicity, demyelination and other neurodegenerative conditions. The authors conclude that this innovative model of human peripheral nerves has the potential to accelerate human disease modeling, drug discovery and toxicity screening.

AxoSim CEO Lowry Curley, PhD, commented, "We believe that our Nerve-on-a-Chip platform is the first fully functional biomimetic microphysiological model of myelinated human peripheral nerves. Myelination is critical for proper neuronal functioning and impaired myelination is implicated in many neurological diseases. This new study confirms that our Nerve-on-a-Chip technology can evaluate key electrophysiological and histological metrics, the gold-standard techniques previously only possible with in vivo and clinical studies. We are currently working with a number of major pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners to conduct studies using the platform, and expect this new study will contribute to the growth of our Nerve-on-a-Chip service."

AxoSim's Nerve-on-a-Chip technology has been shown to achieve research milestones at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional animal testing. For more information on how AxoSim's Nerve-on-a-Chip and Mini-Brain platforms can accelerate neuroscience research projects, contact Ben Cappiello at [email protected].

1 - "Engineering a 3D functional human peripheral nerve in vitro using the Nerve-on-a-Chip platform", Anup D. Sharma, Laurie McCoy, Elizabeth Jacobs, Hannah Willey, Jordan Q. Behn, Hieu Nguyen, Brad Bolon, J. Lowry Curley & Michael J. Moore, Scientific Reports, volume 9, Article number: 8921 (2019)

Funding for this research was provided by grants from the NIH (R42TR001270) and CASIS (GA-2016-238).

About AxoSim
AxoSim is the premier provider of biomimetic neuroscience discovery platforms. The company's proprietary Nerve-on-a-Chip^® and Mini-Brain technologies provide accurate, predictive models of the human nervous system, rapidly delivering clinically actionable human data early in the drug development process. AxoSim's platforms have the potential to reduce the time and cost of new drug R&D for disorders such as multiple sclerosis, glioblastoma, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, infectious diseases and others, in addition to its applications in toxicology. The Nerve-on-a-Chip technology has been shown to achieve research milestones at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional animal testing, allowing AxoSim's biopharmaceutical partners to develop more effective and safer drugs with greater speed and efficiency. For more information, visit AxoSim.com.

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