Harvard scientists have been honored for creating the world’s first vagina-on-a-chip, a small device built with living human cells to mimic the female reproductive tract. The lab grown model offers researchers a new way to examine the vaginal microbiome without relying on mice.

The device allows scientists to study how vaginal tissue responds to hormones, healthy bacteria, infections, medications and possible treatments. Researchers can observe these reactions in human tissue rather than animal models that do not experience the same hormonal changes.

“These are very detailed aspects of human biology that we can now observe and test with these models that we previously couldn’t do with animals, and that sets the stage for us to develop better and more effective strategies for women,” Dr. Zohreh Izadifar, who helped develop the device, told The Post.

Earlier this month, Izadifar received the £50,000 Lush Prize 2026 for Science in recognition of the invention. The award highlighted a device being hailed as a major advance in a field that has long received insufficient investment and study.

“Women’s health has been under-invested and under-studied for so many decades, and that has created a gap in what we know about what is driving the diseases women have,” Izadifar said.

First developed in 2022, the chip uses a permeable plastic membrane designed to reproduce the structure of the vaginal wall. Scientists seed it with donated human cells from the vagina, enabling living tissue to grow within the device.

Izadifar is an assistant professor at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a research scholar at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. She explained that the cells eventually create viable tissue that researchers can use for testing.

Roughly the size of a USB drive, the chip includes tiny electrical sensors. These sensors allow scientists to monitor in real time how the human tissue responds to infections, medicines and changes in its environment.

Researchers consider that capability important because studies of women’s reproductive health have depended heavily on animals despite substantial biological differences. Mice do not menstruate or experience menopause in the same way humans do, according to Izadifar.

Animals also differ anatomically and genetically, while their microbiomes do not contain the same bacteria found in humans. Those differences have complicated research into conditions connected with fertility, pregnancy and infections.

The mismatch is particularly challenging for research into bacterial vaginosis, or BV. The common infection is caused by a bacterial imbalance in the vagina and cervix and affects more than a quarter of women of reproductive age worldwide.

Researchers have forced infections in mice to create experimental models, but Izadifar said the animals have stronger immune systems and can overcome those artificially produced infections within hours. That makes them poor representatives of female human biology for this type of research.

BV can be cleared with antibiotics, but up to 80% of women experience another infection within one year of treatment. Researchers have consequently struggled to test new interventions using animal models that do not accurately reproduce the condition.

“The Lush Prize is a powerful recognition of our efforts to advance a future of biomedical research that is human-relevant and animal-free,” Izadifar said. Lush Cosmetics gives the award annually in collaboration with the campaigning research group Ethical Consumer.

The vagina is not the first organ modeled with this technology. Similar devices have been developed for the lungs, intestines, liver, heart and eyes, while researchers unveiled a cervix-on-a-chip last year.

That cervical device came from researchers at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Wyss Institute. It was designed to mimic the structure and function of the human cervix in much the same way as the vaginal model.

Scientists have already used the vagina chip to compare the effects of healthy bacteria with bacteria associated with BV. Beneficial Lactobacillus bacteria reduced inflammation and preserved healthy acidity, while harmful bacteria connected to BV caused inflammation and tissue damage.

“It was very striking that the different microbial species produced such opposite effects on the human vaginal cells, and we were able to observe and measure those effects quite easily using our Vagina Chip,” Dr. Abidemi Junaid, a research scientist at the Wyss Institute and co-author of the study, said in a 2022 press release.

“The success of these studies demonstrate that this model can be used to test different combinations of microbes to help identify the best probiotic treatments for BV and other conditions.” Researchers believe the vaginal and cervical devices could help unlock answers to major questions in women’s health.