Scientists create BRAIN-ON-A-CHIP for drug testing. We fly too high, Icarus!

Well, this is one way to test drugs and study head injuries and the such. Create a bunch of living cells on a chip! Yeah man. And when those cells go sentient, mutate, and clone themselves a body, I want to be the one that gets to yell “told you so, you fucks!”

Boing Boing:

Draper Laboratory and University of South Florida researchers are developing a prototype “brain-on-a-chip.” No, it’s not an AI but rather a combination of living cells and microfluidics in a bio-artificial model of the brain’s nerovascular unit, the system of neurons, capillaries, and other cells that control the supply of nutrients to the brain. Eventually, such a device could be used to test medications and vaccines. And that’s just the beginning.

“In addition to screening drugs, we could potentially block vascular channels and mimic stroke or atherosclerotic plaque,” says lead researcher Anil Achyuta. “Furthermore, this platform could eventually be used for neurotoxicology, to study the effects of brain injury like concussions, blast injuries, and implantable medical devices such as in neuroprosthetics.”