Human organs-on-chips as tools for repurposing approved drugs as potential influenza and COVID19 therapeutics in viral pandemics

Longlong Si; Haiqing Bai; Melissa Rodas; Wuji Cao; Crystal Yur Oh; Amanda Jiang; Atiq Nurani; Danni Y Zhu; Girija Goyal; Sarah Gilpin; Rachelle Prantil-Baun; Donald E. Ingber

Chip when administered at a clinically relevant dose (Fig. 4B) , whereas it was an effective inhibitor in Huh-7 cells under static conditions (Fig. 4A) , is consistent with the observation that arbidol did not relieve symptoms or accelerate clearance of native SARS-CoV-2 virus in a human clinical trial 30 . Interestingly, chloroquine did not produce statistically significant inhibition effects when administered at its Cmax in the human Airway Chip (Fig. 4B) . The lack of efficacy of chloroquine seen here might be explained by the observation that chloroquine can concentrate to higher levels in lung compared to blood in vivo 31 , or that it exerts its therapeutic effects in humans through mechanisms other than blocking viral entry. However, our results in the human Airway Chip are reminiscent of the findings indicating that while chloroquine was reported to show mild therapeutic effects in preliminary clinical studies with a small numbers of patients 1,33 , it author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.