David and Deok-Ho (co-PIs) were recently awarded a new UG3/UH3 grant entitled: 'Engineering Clinical Trials on a Chip for Dystrophin-Deficient Muscular Dystrophy.' Rounding out the Johns Hopkins team are co-investigators Gabsang Lee, Les Tung, and Peter U.H. Lee.
Clinical Trials on a Chip researchers plan to build and test common and rare disease models to help improve the clinical trial process.
Approximately 85% of late-stage clinical trials of candidate drugs fail because of drug safety problems or ineffectiveness, despite promising preclinical test results. To help improve the design and implementation of clinical trials, the National Institutes of Health has awarded 10 grants to support researchers’ efforts in using tiny, bioengineered models of human tissues and organ systems to study diseases and test drugs. One major goal of the funded projects is to develop ways to better predict which patients are most likely to benefit from an investigational therapy prior to initiating clinical trials.
