Nanostraws Developed at Stanford Sample a Cell’s Contents without Damage
Reporter: Irina Robu, PhD
Cells within our bodies change over time and divide, with thousands of chemical reactions happening within cell daily. Nicholas Melosh, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, developed a new, non-destructive system for sampling cells with nanoscale straws which could help uncover mysteries about how cells function.
Currently, cells are sampled via lysing which ruptures the cell membrane which means that it can’t ever be sampled again. The sample system that Dr. Melosh invented banks on, on tiny tubes 600 times smaller than a strand of hair that allow researchers to sample a single cell at a time. The nanostraws penetrate a cell’s outer membrane, without damaging it, and draw out proteins and genetic material from the cell’s salty interior.
The Nanostraw sampling technique, according to Melosh, will knowingly impact our understanding of cell development and could result to much safer and operational medical therapies because the technique allows for long term, non-destructive monitoring. The sampling technique could also inform cancer treatments and answer questions about why some cancer cells are resistant to chemotherapy while others are not. The sampling platform on which the nanostraws are grown is tiny, similar to the size of a gumball. It’s called the Nanostraw Extraction (NEX) sampling system, and it was designed to mimic biology itself.
The goal of developing this technology was to make an impact in medical biology by providing a platform that any lab could build.
SOURCE
http://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/20/minuscule-nanostraws-sample-cells-contents-without-damage
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