How the Complement-ARIE Challenge winners fit dismech
Written 2026-10-14 against dismech main at commit 8fe34ebd4, for issue
#14176. Source: the
NIH Common Fund
Complement-ARIE Challenge Prize winner summaries
(page last reviewed 2025-11-21), which describe 20 winning proposals for
non-animal models.
This report sits beside the assay and NAM inventory and its companions. The inventory covers what has already been tried inside dismech. This report covers one outside source of candidate models and asks, for each, whether it has a dismech home.
Summary
- Four winners have a published model that could be curated into an existing
entry now: the miniJoint and the click-chemistry cartilage assay into
Osteoarthritis, the orofacial epithelial-mesenchymal microplate into
Cleft Lip/Palate, and the feto-maternal interface organ-on-chip into
Chorioamnionitis or Preterm Premature Rupture of the Membranes. All four
entries have no
experimental_modelstoday. - Three more have a published model that needs a decision first. For the ABMACT agent-based model and the CAR T trial-on-chip, the full text has to settle which cancer entry they belong to (the published chip is leukaemia, not the pancreatic cancer the proposal describes). The OASIS Cell Painting hepatocyte screen is a preprint and is only partly disease-specific, which makes it fringe in the same way as the ToxCast endpoints.
- Three have no published model yet that matches the proposal: the Alzheimer blood-brain-barrier chip, the atherosclerosis tissue array, and the rheumatoid arthritis synovial organoids.
- Ten do not fit a disease entry. Three are not models (E-validation, ATHENA-N and the NAMKG registry). Five are platforms published without a disease (4D bioprinting, organoid intelligence, the skin equivalent, the multi-compartment lymph node chip, the engineered heart constructs). Two are disease-agnostic toxicology (DeTox and the canine testis organoid).
The proposals themselves are not citable evidence. Everything below that says a model "fits" refers to the published paper named in that row, not to the challenge summary.
How the table was built
- Published model. PubMed was searched on 2026-10-14 by team-member names combined with the model's subject. Every PMID below was retrieved from PubMed and its abstract read. "None found" means these searches returned no paper describing the proposed model; it does not prove that none exists.
- Target entry. The
kb/disorders/orkb/modules/file the model would attach to, with its count ofexperimental_models(orcomputational_models) at the commit above. - Type.
experimental_model_type(ExperimentalModelTypeEnum) or, for computational models,model_type(ComputationalModelTypeEnum).namo_typeis a class in the current NAMO schema (56 classes), or "none" where no class fits. - Tie. The row of the "what ties the model to the disease" table in #13602: the cells carry the lesion; unaffected cells given the exposure that causes the disease; unaffected cells given a risk-factor exposure; unaffected cells given the treatment; a wild-type target with a chemical and no disease context. "No disease" marks a model published without any disease, which that table does not cover.
The 20 winners
| # | Winner (team captain) | Published model | Target entry (models now) | Type / namo_type |
Tie | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4D Tissue Fabrication (Gartner, UCSF) | PMID:41807773, bioprinted organoids in a stress-relaxing granular matrix, several tissue types | none | ORGANOID / namo:Organoid |
No disease | Does not fit |
| 2 | Sensor-Enhanced Isogenic Model of Alzheimer's (Barrile, Cincinnati) | None found for Alzheimer disease. PMID:31173718 is a co-authored iPSC blood-brain-barrier chip with patient lines from other neurological diseases | Alzheimer_Disease (1) |
ORGAN_ON_CHIP / namo:OrganOnChip |
Carries the lesion (patient iPSCs, per the proposal) | No paper yet |
| 3 | Agent-based Models for Adoptive Cell Therapy (K. Chen, MD Anderson) | PMID:41673469, ABMACT agent-based model of CAR-NK therapy | computational_models of a lymphoma entry; the abstract names no cancer type, the proposal names B-cell lymphoma |
AGENT_BASED / none |
Computational model | Fits, target needs full text |
| 4 | Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Trials on a Chip (W. Chen, NYU) | PMID:40595437, immunocompetent leukaemia bone-marrow chip for CAR T screening. No pancreatic version found | A leukaemia entry; the abstract does not name the subtype | ORGAN_ON_CHIP / namo:OrganOnChip |
Carries the lesion, plus the treatment | Fits, target needs full text |
| 5 | Click Chemistry Magic for Drug Screening (Lu, Delaware) | PMID:42011976, osteoarthritic human knee cartilage from knee replacements exposed to triamcinolone. Method: PMID:42120803 | Osteoarthritis (0) |
OTHER (ex vivo explant) / none |
Carries the lesion | Fits |
| 6 | DevTox (Tropsha, Predictive LLC) | PMID:40388119, DeTox QSAR models of developmental toxicity | none (no single disease) | MACHINE_LEARNING / namo:QSARModel |
Chemical, no disease context | Does not fit |
| 7 | E-validation (Hartung, JHU CAAT) | PMID:39444208, a proposal for AI-planned validation studies | none | not a model | Not a model | Does not fit |
| 8 | Omics for Liver Toxicity Assessment (Singh, Broad) | PMID:39896617 (bioRxiv preprint), Cell Painting in primary human hepatocytes, 1,085 compounds. Consortium paper: PMID:40971841 | drug_induced_liver_injury module (4) |
PRIMARY_CELL_CULTURE / namo:TwoDCellCulture |
Exposure that causes the disease, for the hepatotoxic compounds only | Fringe |
| 9 | Facing the Future of Microphysiological Modeling (Johnson, MSU) | PMID:33634122, epithelium over ECM-embedded mesenchyme in a micromachined microplate; SHH signalling blocked by small molecules. Protocol: PMID:34913124 | Cleft_Lip_Palate (0) |
CO_CULTURE / namo:CoCulture |
Exposure that is a risk factor | Fits |
| 10 | Future Fertility: Mini-Testis (Yin, Reprotox Biotech) | None found for a human model. PMID:41318009 is a canine testicular organoid for environmental exposures | none (no male infertility entry; the spermatogenic failure entries are genetic) | ORGANOID / namo:Organoid |
Chemical, no disease context | Does not fit |
| 11 | Interpreting Brains and Artificial Networks (Ponce, Harvard) | Not sought: the subject is an artificial neural network | none | not a model | Not a model | Does not fit |
| 12 | Machine Learning Assisted HTP Tissue Array (Tan, CU Boulder) | None found | Coronary_Artery_Disease (0); no Atherosclerosis entry |
CO_CULTURE (expected) |
Not known | No paper yet |
| 13 | NAMKG registry (Luechtefeld, Insilica) | None found | none | not a model | Not a model | Does not fit |
| 14 | Neuro-Immuno-Cutaneous Skin Equivalent (D. Kaplan, Tufts) | PMID:32627348, skin equivalent with epidermis, dermis, hypodermis, immune cells and induced neural stem cells. No disease or irritant tested in the abstract | Contact_Dermatitis (0), only once an irritant study exists |
PRIMARY_CELL_CULTURE / namo:ThreeDCellCulture |
No disease | Does not fit yet |
| 15 | Organ-on-a-Chip for Osteoarthritis Pain (H. Lin, Pittsburgh) | PMID:35436042 and PMID:36830751, the miniJoint: MSC-derived osteochondral, synovial-like and adipose tissues in a microfluidic bioreactor, inflamed with IL-1β. The neuron and immune-cell versions in the proposal were not found | Osteoarthritis (0) |
ORGAN_ON_CHIP / namo:OrganOnChip |
Unaffected cells given an exposure (IL-1β) that stands in for the cause | Fits, with CAUSE_UNREPRESENTED |
| 16 | Organoid Intelligence (Smirnova, JHU) | PMID:40819006, learning and memory building blocks in neural organoids | none | IPSC_DERIVED_MODEL / namo:Organoid |
No disease | Does not fit |
| 17 | Organoid Modeling of RA Joints (Rao, Brigham and Women's) | None found | Rheumatoid_Arthritis (0) |
ORGANOID / namo:Organoid |
Carries the lesion (patient cells, per the proposal) | No paper yet |
| 18 | Population Diversity in Vaccine Responses (Pompano, UVA) | PMID:39661075, a multi-compartment chip with murine lymph node slices; no brain or adipose compartment, no infection | none | OTHER (ex vivo slice) / none |
No disease | Does not fit yet |
| 19 | Pregnancy on Chip (Menon, UTMB) | PMID:33112317, four-chamber feto-maternal interface organ-on-chip (decidua, chorion, amnion) with LPS as ascending infection. Also PMID:41106448, environmental chemicals linked to preterm birth | Chorioamnionitis (0) or Preterm_Premature_Rupture_of_the_Membranes (0) |
ORGAN_ON_CHIP / namo:OrganOnChip |
Exposure that causes the disease (LPS for infection); risk-factor exposure for the chemicals paper | Fits |
| 20 | Pulse of the Future: AI-human MEHC (Yang, North Texas) | Only the image-analysis software (PMID:37672553, Organalysis) and a cardiomyocyte micropattern study (PMID:38699629). No disease model found | none | IPSC_DERIVED_MODEL / none |
No disease | Does not fit yet |
Notes on individual rows
Osteoarthritis gets two different kinds of model. The miniJoint (row 15)
builds joint tissues from healthy mesenchymal stem cells and adds IL-1β, so the
disease is imposed rather than present; a link from it needs a
CAUSE_UNREPRESENTED divergence. The cartilage explants in row 5 come from
knee replacements, so the tissue carries the disease, but dismech has no
experimental_model_type or NAMO class for an ex vivo explant and it would be
recorded as OTHER with no namo_type.
The orofacial microplate repeats the Akura Twin problem. Row 9 is a
micromachined plate with no perfusion, the same situation as the liver fibrosis
plate in the NAMO vocabulary gaps note:
MicrophysiologicalSystem is abstract and assumes microfluidics, so
namo:CoCulture is the closest binding. The abstract does not say whether the
cells are human, which the curator will need from the full text.
The pregnancy chip has two candidate entries. LPS on the decidua side models ascending infection, which is the cause of chorioamnionitis and a cause of membrane rupture. There is no Preterm Birth entry. Whichever entry is chosen, the chip's readouts are inflammatory cytokines by layer, so the target nodes should be inflammation nodes rather than the rupture itself.
Two published models are not the proposed model. In row 4 the team
published a leukaemia chip, not the pancreatic cancer organoid chip they
proposed. In row 10 the team published a canine testis organoid, not a human
one. A canine organoid would need organism set to dog, the same species
question the murine tissue slices raised in #9997.
OASIS belongs with the ToxCast question. Row 8 screens 1,085 compounds of mixed toxicity on normal hepatocytes. Only the hepatotoxic compounds give it a disease tie, so it falls between the "exposure that causes the disease" row and the "chemical, no disease context" row of #13602, where the ToxCast endpoints in
12858 also sit. The full study is a preprint.
Where this agrees with the inventory, and what it adds
The inventory's list of recurring blockers predicts most of the problems above:
| Blocker in the inventory | Winners that hit it |
|---|---|
| No NAMO class for non-perfused plates or ex vivo slices | 5 (cartilage explants), 9 (microplate), 18 (lymph node slices) |
| No structured exposure, dose or donor population on a model | 8 (1,085 compounds), 15 (IL-1β), 19 (LPS and four chemicals); the proposals for 2 (isogenic patient lines) and 18 (donors varying by sex, age, race and obesity) depend on donor information |
| No disease-agnostic assay record | 6, 8, 10 |
Two things here are not in the inventory:
- Multi-tissue systems. Rows 15, 18 and 19, and the proposal in row 2,
couple several tissues in one device.
experimental_modelsgives onetissue_termper model andnamo_typeis single-valued, so a chip with decidua, chorion and amnion, or a joint with bone, cartilage, synovium and fat, records one tissue. - Models with no disease. Five winners published a platform with no disease in it (rows 1, 14, 16, 18 and 20). Under #13602's framing these are not fringe disease models; they are not disease models at all, which supports the suggestion in that thread of a verdict for "belongs somewhere other than a disease entry".
Follow-up curation
Each "Fits" row is one curation issue, attaching the named paper's model to the
named entry with modeled_mechanisms links and quoted evidence:
Osteoarthritis: the miniJoint (PMID:35436042, PMID:36830751) and the cartilage explants (PMID:42011976).Cleft_Lip_Palate: the orofacial microplate (PMID:33634122).ChorioamnionitisorPreterm_Premature_Rupture_of_the_Membranes: the feto-maternal interface chip (PMID:33112317).- After a full-text check of the cancer type: ABMACT (PMID:41673469) and the leukaemia trial-on-chip (PMID:40595437).
The "No paper yet" rows are worth re-checking when those teams publish.