Why Organ on Chip? Judy Fulton Explains

If you walked past a lounge near the lab of Judy Fulton, Ph.D., on a recent March morning, you might have wondered what was drawing researchers from Northeast Ohio Medical University and its REDIzone® companies into a huddle around the senior research scientist.

As it turns out, they were there to learn more about the Organ-on-Chip technology Dr. Fulton is cultivating. The technology replicates certain human organs so that drugs may be tested for toxicity prior to conducting animal preclinical trials, thus reducing the number of animal trials.

The advantage of Organ-on-Chip is that it allows a test to fail early. That may not sound like a good thing. But when researching a new drug for eventual human consumption, it’s an advantage to find out early if something will not work, so that proper adjustments and dosing can be determined early prior to spending money and time on more costly preclinical and clinical studies.

So explained Dr. Fulton, who is the subject matter expert in the Pharmaceutical Proof of Concept Center managed through the REDIzone life-science business incubator and research commercialization program at NEOMED.

Thus far, Dr. Fulton has established preliminary protocols for kidney and liver micro-organs (as they are known). Next, she will expand the repertoire of the technology’s use to include additional organs, with a particular interest in skin – her area of expertise.

A scientist with 28 years of experience, between Cleveland Clinic Akron General and the Serena Group (a wound care company and former REDIzone client), Dr. Fulton has no doubt that the new technology holds tremendous promise.

As she told the interested researchers crowded around her, “The sky is the limit!”

To learn more, contact Dr. Fulton at jfulton1@neomed.edu.