The clearest example of this shift is a model human lung developed at Harvard's Wyss Institute. Seventeen years ago, Donald Ingber and his colleagues submitted a paper to Science describing the device, which was smaller than a USB stick and made of a transparent material. It was designed to mimic the structure and behavior of a living lung on a chip-sized platform.
That kind of lab hardware is now close to replacing some animal tests, according to IEEE Spectrum. But the same report stresses that scientists are not fully ready to embrace it. The hesitation is not about the engineering; it is about confidence. A chip can reproduce one organ's mechanics, but an animal body involves interactions across many organs and systems that are harder to model.
The source presents this as a single narrative: the technology is almost ready, and the scientific community is still catching up. There are no conflicting accounts in the report. The open question is whether organ chips can prove they are dependable enough to become a standard tool in regulatory and research settings.