ATCC's Podcast: Behind the Biology
Jun 2, 2026 · 22 min · 10 segments
What drives a scientist to rethink how we model human biology? In this episode, Dr. Carolina Lucchesi shares how her career evolved from animal-based research to pioneering work in organ-on-a-chip…
Carolina LucchesiGuest
Dave JamiesonHost
We know that there is all of the issues with the pharmaceutical companies, right? That, uh, right now, a compound, uh, an average of 10, um, 10,000 compounds that are generating drug discovery.
Only five actually cross the gate of the clinical trials, get, uh, approval to enter clinical trials.
And from these five compounds, only one, an average of course, uh, one make it through the market to the hands of the, um, as a therapeutic for, for, uh, for the...
To enter the community to be using, right? And this is a timeframe that is taking about 15 years, right? And about 2 billion to happen.
So that means that it is a long timeframe for patients to be waiting for, uh, a treatment.
Today, there is a- an average of one in 100 people inside of the hospital die of adverse reaction, so it's a very significant number.
And, uh, actually, people who really work in this field believe that this number is even higher than that.
So it's a big problem that we have in our hands that, you know, animal models do not reflect the human physiology, and we really need to have a better technology there to understand what is happening.
Um, so I think those are the, the, you know, my piv- pivotal moment that when I saw this technology happen and I say, "You know, this is really can make a difference.
I really want to be part of this and, and make a difference one day." So this is was one moment, one pivotal moment.
We know that there is all of the issues with the pharmaceutical companies, right? That, uh, right now, a compound, uh, an average of 10, um, 10,000 compounds that are generating drug discovery.
Only five actually cross the gate of the clinical trials, get, uh, approval to enter clinical trials.
And from these five compounds, only one, an average of course, uh, one make it through the market to the hands of the, um, as a therapeutic for, for, uh, for the...
To enter the community to be using, right? And this is a timeframe that is taking about 15 years, right? And about 2 billion to happen.
So that means that it is a long timeframe for patients to be waiting for, uh, a treatment.
Today, there is a- an average of one in 100 people inside of the hospital die of adverse reaction, so it's a very significant number.
And, uh, actually, people who really work in this field believe that this number is even higher than that.
So it's a big problem that we have in our hands that, you know, animal models do not reflect the human physiology, and we really need to have a better technology there to understand what is happening.
Um, so I think those are the, the, you know, my piv- pivotal moment that when I saw this technology happen and I say, "You know, this is really can make a difference.
I really want to be part of this and, and make a difference one day." So this is was one moment, one pivotal moment.
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3 of 5
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She recalls hacking an early prototype.
Why Drugs Fail Pipeline
Listen to these sobering drug development numbers.
Fixing Clinical Trial Diversity
Expanding representation beyond current clinical trials limits.
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