Patient’s Barrett’s Esophagus Modeled On-a-Chip

BE Article: This immunofluorescence staining shows how an esophageal Organ Chip culture recapitulates the stroma-epithelial interphase of a Barrett’s esophagus (BE) region within a patient’s throat. The BE-like epithelium (visualized by a marker in their outer cell membranes in blue, and nuclei in magenta) grows immediately on a stroma-mimicking collagen gel with embedded fibroblasts (visualized for a fibroblast marker in yellow) that were derived from the same patient. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University Mucus stain in human Barrett’s esophagus on-chip: The epithelium of a patient’s Barrett’s esophagus (BE) modeled in an Organ Chip, and grown directly on a stroma-mimicking matrix containing fibroblasts derived from the same BE-region shows obvious signs of BE. Stained in blue are mucus-producing goblet cells that in healthy conditions are only found in the intestine, and stained in purple are mucus molecules usually only produced in stomach. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University