Tag: Genetics

Device Measures Stiffness of Tens of Thousands of Cells to Screen Drugs for Safety (Video)

Force cytometry, or measurement of strength of cells, can be a useful indicator for assessing how specific drugs affect cell function. Rapidly performing thousands of force cytometry tests can help speed up drug testing, particularly for compounds intended to treat blood pressure, stroke, muscular dystrophy, and asthma. Scientists at UCLA and Rutge (Read more...)

3D Printed Clip Turns Smartphone into Powerful Microscope

Modern smartphones feature incredible image sensors that are much better than professional equipment from only a few years ago. They’re great for microscopy and simple attachments in front of the lens can give great views of blood, cells, and other specimens. The only problem is that the sample has to be illuminated and having LEDs […]

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Brain Organoids Show Formation of Brain Wrinkles

Our regular readers might have noted that the development of organ-on-a-chip devices has become a popular research trend. Tiny living parts of real human organs can be sustained for long periods of time inside of specially designed chambers that feed the organoids and provide researchers a window to examine them under a microscope. All sorts [&hell (Read more...)

Placenta-on-a-Chip to Screen for Drug Safety During Pregnancy

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a microfluidic chip that mimics the placental barrier. Their device paves the way for drug screening to determine which drugs can cross the placental barrier, allowing researchers to assess drug safety for pregnant women. Pharmacological treatment for pregnant women can be risky, as some (Read more...)

Gene Therapy and Optogenetic Goggles for Retinitis Pigmentosa. Interview with Dr. Bernard Gilly, CEO of GenSight Biologics

GenSight Biologics, a biopharmaceutical company based in France, is developing gene therapies for rare diseases that cause blindness. The company has recently received approval in the UK for its Phase I/II PIONEER trial, which will test a treatment combining gene therapy with a visual stimulation device for people with retinitis pigmentosa, an incu (Read more...)

3D Printing Living Cells Into Useful Biomedical Objects

There have been a number of techniques recently developed for printing objects with living cells inside of them. The technology can lead to custom tissue replacements and other medical applications, but all these methods are quite slow. That’s because living cells have to somehow be carefully moved through microfluidic channels to mix wi (Read more...)

Artificial Brain Synapses Replicated in a Chip

Our brains mainly consist of brain cells and the connections between them, making them quite modular and incredibly adaptable. Brain synapses, the connections between neurons, seem to be responsible for at least some of the computational magic that allows us to think, move, and respond to all sorts of stimuli. Being able to replicate the […]

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Microfluidic Mixer Combines Fluids without Backflow to Make Advanced Portable Diagnostics Practical

Lab on a chip devices are designed to perform advanced diagnostics and drug testing using small samples of blood and other body fluids. We’ve written about many such devices, including for assessing the effectiveness of chemo and for picking out circulating tumor cells, but microfluidic technologies that rely on capillary or vacuum powered te (Read more...)

Microfluidic Device Mimics the Blood-Retinal Barrier

Researchers in Barcelona have developed a microfluidic chip that mimics the human blood-retinal barrier. The device contains several parallel compartments, containing different cell types, to mimic the layered structure of the retina. The researchers hope to use the device to test the effect of drugs on the retina and to better study diabetic retin (Read more...)

Biomeme’s Portable PCR System Expands Research Possibilities

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the most widely used techniques in biological research and testing, allowing researchers to amplify and identify even small quantities of DNA or RNA. It serves a wide variety of uses, from genetic testing to infectious disease identification to forensics. Thermal cyclers, the machines that run PCR, are a [& (Read more...)

Cryogenic 3D Printing to Make Replica Brain and Lung Tissues

Printing biological tissues, a necessary precursor to creating replacement organs, is not easy, but constructing extremely soft and fragile tissues that resemble the brain and lungs is even more difficult. Researchers at Imperial College London and Kings College London are now using extremely cold temperatures in combination with 3D printing to cre (Read more...)