Image copyright Design Museum

Silicon chips that mimic the function of living human organs have won the Design of the Year award from the Design Museum in London.

It is the first time an entry from the field of medicine has won the award.

The museum said the project seems to "symbolise the essence of life and also happens to be beautiful to look at".

Scientists at Harvard University's Wyss Institute placed human cells from different tissues on to the chips to study how the different organs worked.

Their lung-on-a-chip, for example, contracts and relaxes, as the lungs would, as air is passed over the cells.

The Wyss Institute says the devices could provide an alternative to animal testing for drug development.

They may also play a role in testing the safety of cosmetics or toxicity of chemicals.

Deyan Sudjic, the director of the Design Museum, said: "The team of scientists that produced this remarkable object don't come from a conventional design background, but what they have done is clearly a brilliant piece of design.

"They identified a serious problem: how do we predict how human cells will behave. And they solved it with elegance and economy of means, putting technology from apparently unrelated fields to work in new ways.

"They have, perhaps unintentionally, created something that for a lay man seems to symbolise the essence of life and also happens to be beautiful to look at."

"Organs-on-chips" was nominated by Paola Antonelli, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

She said the chips were the "the epitome of design innovation - elegantly beautiful form, arresting concept and pioneering application".

Previous winners of the award include the Olympic torch from the 2012 London Games.