The chip is more realistic than other laboratory models of the organ, Dr. Ingber said: “This walks, talks, quacks like a human vagina.”He and other researchers are optimistic that the tool could offer a better way to test treatments for bacterial vaginosis, an infection of harmful microbes in the vagina which affects an estimated 30 percent of women every year.“But when you want to explore which medications can work, it’s very, very difficult to find women who are willing to participate in these studies.”The study, which was funded by the Gates Foundation, used the vagina chip to mimic how a real vagina responds to good and bad bacterial environments.When a different type of bacterium, one associated with vaginal infections, was cultured on the chip with no Lactobacilli present, inflammation increased and the cells were quickly damaged.And when vaginal cells are mixed with bacteria in a flat petri dish, bacteria quickly take over and kill the cells.Having a more sophisticated model will require more studies of how exactly the vaginal microbiome works and how it responds to disease, she added."