In 2019, NCATS — with support from the Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative® — awarded five grants for research teams to create and test tissue chips to understand the mechanisms or effects of nociception (the sensory system’s response to harmful stimuli, including pain-relevant signaling), addiction and opioid use disorder. Tissue chips closely mimic human physiology, which makes them useful as models for studying biological processes and testing the toxicity, safety and efficacy of drugs.

The funded research, which totals approximately $158.2 million, is divided into two phases. In the first phase, researchers will develop and validate the nociception, addiction or overdose characteristics of their tissue chips. In the second phase, researchers will test the functionality of the tissue chips to understand pain or opioid pathway mechanisms, characterize tissue responses to pain or opioid therapeutics, identify new treatments for pain or addiction, or offer insights into improving current treatment efficacy.

• Through the NIH HEAL Initiative, NCATS is applying translational science approaches to advance new treatments for opioid addiction and pain in a variety of ways. Learn more about NCATS-led NIH HEAL Initiative funding and collaboration opportunities.

These awards were made in response to RFA-TR-19-003.

View the project details below:

The University of Texas at Dallas

hiPSC-Based DRG Tissue Mimics on Multiwell Microelectrode Arrays as a Tissue Chip Model of Acute and Chronic Nociception

Principal Investigator: Bryan James Black, Ph.D.  
Grant Number: 1-UG3-TR-003149-01

Tulane University, University of Wisconsin and University of Central Florida

Human Microphysiological Model of Afferent Nociceptive Signaling

Principal Investigators: Michael J. Moore, Ph.D., Randolph S. Ashton, Ph.D., and Swaminathan Rajaraman, Ph.D.  
Grant Number: 1-UG3-TR-003150-01

University of Pittsburgh

Joint Pain on a Chip: Mechanistic Analysis, Therapeutic Targets and an Empirical Strategy for Personalized Pain Management

Principal Investigators: Michael S. Gold, Ph.D., and Hang Lin, Ph.D. 
Grant Number: 1-UG3-TR-003090-01

University of Central Florida and Cornell University

Multiorgan Human-on-a-Chip System to Address Overdose and Acute and Chronic Efficacy and Off-Target Toxicity

Principal Investigators: James J. Hickman, Ph.D., and Michael L. Shuler, Ph.D.  
Grant Number: 1-UG3-TR-003081-01

University of California, Los Angeles

Multiorgan-on-Chip Device for Modeling Opioid Reinforcement and Withdrawal and the Negative Affective Component of Pain: A Therapeutic Screening Tool

Principal Investigators: Nigel T. Maidment, Ph.D., Nureddin Ashammakhi, M.D., Ph.D., Stephanie Kristin Seidlits, Ph.D., and Clive Niels Svendsen, Ph.D.  
Grant Number: 1-UG3-TR-003148-01