A KAIST research team has developed a bio-microfluidic system that reproduces in a laboratory the process in which drug-induced muscle damage leads to kidney damage, it said on Sunday.

KAIST said the team led by Professor Seongyun Jeon of the Department of Mechanical Engineering recreated a human organ environment on a small chip. It used a modular organ-on-a-chip that can connect or separate muscle and kidney at the same time. The device reproduced in a laboratory a chain reaction between human organs in which drug-induced muscle damage leads to kidney damage. It is built to link muscle tissue and proximal tubule epithelial cells on a single chip.

The system is a plug-and-socket modular microfluidic chip designed to culture cells and tissues on a small chip and allow them to affect each other. It can culture muscle and kidney tissues separately and connect them only when needed to induce interactions between organs.

Jeon said the system provides a foundation to analyse interactions and toxic responses that occur between muscle and kidney in a way similar to the human body. He said it could be expanded to predict drug side effects in advance, identify the causes of acute kidney injury and develop into personalised drug safety assessments.

Jeon's team conducted the research jointly with the team led by Professor Kidong Shim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Sejung Kim of Bundang Seoul National University Hospital. The research, with researcher Jaesang Kim as first author, was published in the international journal Advanced Functional Materials on Nov. 12, 2025. The work received support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea.