Chinese scientists have developed the world’s first “heart chip” that can be used to test drug efficacy by displaying different colors after drugs are injected into the cardiomyocytes, Science and Technology Daily reported on April 4.

The chip was developed by Professor Zhao Yuanjin’s team at the School of Biological Sciences & Medical Engineering at Southeast University. This research result was recently published in Science Robotics.

Inspired by the structural color regulation mechanism of chameleons, Zhao’s team presents a conceptually different structural color material exhibiting an autonomic regulation capability by assembling engineered cardiomyocyte tissues on synthetic inverse opal hydrogel films. This was observed to be occurring through a process of synchronous shifting within both the photonic band gap as well as structural colors of the synthetic regulation mechanism made by Zhao’s team.

“The self-developed structural color material is adopted in the chips, making changes of the cardiomyocytes more intuitive than chips developed by other countries that use ordinary flexible materials,” said Zhao.

Zhao disclosed that the cost for producing such a chip is only about 200 yuan ($31.8) after it enters mass production the team will continue to develop a complete chip structure for human organs.