L’Oréal and Hurel Corporation jointly announced that they have achieved the initial milestone of a research and development collaboration to create a new and transformational in vitro test for potential allergic reactions to substances that could come into contact with the skin.
The new device, named «Allergy Test on a Chip,» is intended to comprise a technological substitute for the animal test known as the local lymph node assay («LLNA»). LLNA is presently accepted by regulatory agencies worldwide as a standard means for evaluating potential allergenic responses to new ingredients of consumer and industrial products.
R&D activities of the collaboration are being performed by Hurel in the United States, with contributions by L’Oréal’s scientific team. Allergy Test on a Chip, a patented embodiment of Hurel’s multi-tissue, microfluidic cell culture technology, will integrate a reconstructed human skin; a separate cell culture capable of simulating a human immune system response (i.e., an allergic reaction); and means of microfluidically-mediated signaling between the skin construct where the allergenic stimulus originates and the immune system construct where the response to that stimulus occurs.
In its recently completed first year, the collaboration achieved its initial milestone of demonstrating the microfluidic signaling component of the device. In vivo, in response to an allergen contacting the skin, certain cells migrate out of the skin and into a nearby lymph node, where they signal the immune system to launch an allergic reaction. Achieving the initial milestone entailed simulating this process of migration in a prototype microfluidic device.