Silicon chips that mimic the function of living human organs have won the Design of the Year award from the Design Museum in London.
It is the first time an entry from the field of medicine has won the award.
The museum said the project seems to “symbolise the essence of life and also happens to be beautiful to look at”.
Scientists at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute placed human cells from different tissues on to the chips to study how the different organs worked.
Their lung-on-a-chip, for example, contracts and relaxes, as the lungs would, as air is passed over the cells.
The Wyss Institute says the devices could provide an alternative to animal testing for drug development.