https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191220105627.htm

The path to drug discovery is never easy. Scientists and clinicians can go through tens-of-thousands of potential compounds for years to find a handful of viable candidates, only for them to fail at the clinical level.

"Potential compounds are tested using animal models and cells cultured in a dish. However, those results frequently do not transfer over to human biology," explains first author Yuji Nashimoto formally of the Graduate School of Engineering, and now at Tohoku University. "Furthermore, cells on a dish lack the three-dimensional structure and blood vessels, or vasculature, that keep it alive. So, we came up with a plan to construct a device that solves these issues."