Los Angeles, CA – February 23, 2026 – In a groundbreaking advancement poised to transform the landscape of transplantation medicine, Dr. Vadim Jucaud, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, alongside Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Angeles Baquerizo, has secured a prestigious NIH R21 grant. This funding supports their pioneering initiative to develop a vascularized porcine liver-on-a-chip platform, a cutting-edge organ-on-a-chip system designed to dissect and understand immune rejection in pig-to-human liver xenotransplantation with unprecedented precision.
End-stage liver disease persists as a leading cause of mortality worldwide, with transplantation representing the sole curative treatment for many patients. Yet, the stark scarcity of human donor organs creates a formidable bottleneck, leaving thousands languishing on transplant waitlists without hope of timely intervention. In this context, xenotransplantation—the transplantation of pig organs into humans—emerges as a promising but complex frontier fraught with intricate immunological hurdles that have so far stymied its clinical adoption.
Despite dramatic advances in the field of genetic engineering, enabling the modification of porcine organs to better mimic human immunological profiles, the phenomenon of xenoimmune rejection remains an obstinate barrier. Dr. Jucaud underscores the urgency of transcending current limitations by emphasizing the need for sophisticated in vitro platforms that emulate the nuanced interactions between human immune components and pig organ tissues. This, he asserts, will enable predictive, controllable strategies to mitigate adverse immune responses effectively.
The crux of the NIH-funded project lies in engineering a vascularized liver-on-a-chip device that faithfully replicates the complex architecture and function of a pig liver, including its perfusable vasculature. Unlike traditional static tissue culture or animal models, this microfluidic platform integrates living porcine liver cells with their native vascular network, engineered within a micro-scale environment amenable to real-time observation and manipulation.
Crucially, this model permits the introduction of human immune effectors—both humoral elements such as antibodies and cellular components including T cells and macrophages—to monitor their dynamic interactions with porcine tissue. By capturing antibody-mediated rejection mechanisms alongside cell-mediated immune responses within a controlled, human-relevant context, researchers can interrogate the molecular and cellular crosstalk responsible for graft injury, immune activation, and eventual rejection.
This innovative system offers the ability to unravel integral pathways underlying xenograft acceptance or failure, generating data that may direct the rational design of genetically engineered pigs with enhanced immunological compatibility. Moreover, the platform’s scalability and controllability represent a transformative alternative to in vivo animal studies, aligning with the scientific community’s shift towards ethical, reproducible, and human-relevant experimental paradigms.
Beyond its empirical contributions, the project resonates deeply with the legacy of Dr. Paul I. Terasaki, a titan of transplant immunology whose trailblazing work established foundational principles for organ matching and rejection prediction. The Terasaki Institute continues to embody his vision by harmonizing cutting-edge engineering and immunological insights into tangible innovations aimed at patient-centered solutions.
By converging expertise spanning bioengineering, clinical transplantation, and immunology, the Terasaki team envisions that the porcine liver-on-a-chip will serve as an essential bridge driving xenotransplantation from experimental curiosity to approved medical practice. The close monitoring capabilities and fine-tuned immune system modeling will accelerate preclinical evaluation of novel immunomodulatory regimens and organ modifications, thereby de-risking future clinical trials.
In a broader context, the success of this technology signals a new epoch in organ transplantation. By supplanting animal testing with sophisticated micro-engineered models, it not only promises reduced ethical concerns but also enhanced translational relevance, enabling faster iteration cycles in research and development. This shift embodies emerging regulatory trends that prioritize predictive in vitro platforms in biomedical innovation.
Immunologically, the platform’s capacity to recreate vascularized environments and flow conditions is critical because vascular integrity underpins graft survival and immune accessibility. The microfluidic system mimics physiological shear stresses and nutrient exchanges, providing environments where immune responses can be studied as they occur in vivo, a feat unachievable with conventional static cultures.
The intersection of microfluidics, tissue engineering, and immunology exemplified by this work is emblematic of the next wave of biomedical engineering aimed at solving previously intractable problems. This research exemplifies how organ-on-a-chip technologies can elucidate complex pathophysiological processes, catalyzing innovations that extend beyond transplantation to other fields such as infectious diseases and cancer.
As the project unfolds, it promises not only to generate critical insights into the mechanisms driving xenoimmune rejection but also to foster a new paradigm where biomedical innovation is deployed with speed, precision, and relevance to human health. These advances echo the Terasaki Institute’s mission to translate science into solutions that tangibly improve patient outcomes.
By bridging the interspecies immunological divide, Dr. Jucaud’s vascularized porcine liver-on-a-chip platform may ultimately unlock the full potential of xenotransplantation, offering hope to patients facing liver failure and addressing the growing disparity between organ demand and supply that has long plagued transplantation medicine.
Subject of Research: Development of a vascularized porcine liver-on-a-chip platform to study immune rejection mechanisms in pig-to-human liver xenotransplantation.
Article Title: Engineering the Future of Xenotransplantation: A Vascularized Porcine Liver-on-a-Chip as a Window into Human Immune Rejection.
News Publication Date: February 23, 2026.
Image Credits: Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation.
Keywords
Transplantation, Xenografts, Immunology, Bioengineering, Liver, Organ-on-a-chip, Xenotransplantation, Immune rejection, Microfluidics, Tissue engineering, Vascularization, Biomedical innovation
