Forum for Science, Industry and Business

New lab-on-a-chip monitors effect of medication on individual cancer cells

The new ‘apoptosis chip’ opens up new possibilities in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Just a limited number of cells is required for the analysis, without the need of an operative biopsy. An individual cell can now be monitored when medication is added. Cell culture of millions of cells, with risk of cellular modification, is not necessary using this new method. The chip itself can be made of a relatively cheap and disposable material and meets the high standards of medical use.

Floor Wolbers has done on-chip research of the process called apoptosis, both of healthy cells and breast cancer cells. The major difference is the occurance of ‘anoikis’: dying cells leaving their colony when they die. Cancer cells may release themselves but this doesn’t lead to their death: they metastase elsewhere.

This difference between healthy cells and cancer cells can clearly be seen in the on-chip experiments. Healthy endothelium cells, in the presence of TNF-alpha, show the characteristics of apoptosis and then start to release themselves, dying in the end. Breast cancer cells under the influence of the same substance start showing apoptosis but when they do move away, they don’t necessarily die: there is no anoikis. This is particularly the case for breast cancer cells treated with tamoxifen, which is a common hormone treatment. This clearly shows the specific nature of treatment and dose, and on-chip monitoring will enable a fast comparison of different cell types and cytostatics.

The new technique can already be applied in a clinical setting. At present, the process is monitored using an optical microscope, for high-throughput screening, electronics can be added to the chip. Using multiple chambers for cell culture, fast comparison will be possible.

Floor Wolbers, who defends her PhD-thesis ‘Apoptosis chip for drug screening’ on the 8th of June, 2007, has closely cooperated with the hospital Medisch Spectrum Twente in Enschede, with the gynaecologist dr. H.R. Franke and the clinical chemistry lab of prof.dr. I. Vermes.

Wiebe van der Veen | alfa
Further information:
http://www.utwente.nl

Im Focus: AchemAsia 2019 will take place in Shanghai

Moving into its fourth decade, AchemAsia is setting out for new horizons: The International Expo and Innovation Forum for Sustainable Chemical Production will take place from 21-23 May 2019 in Shanghai, China. With an updated event profile, the eleventh edition focusses on topics that are especially relevant for the Chinese process industry, putting a strong emphasis on sustainability and innovation.

Founded in 1989 as a spin-off of ACHEMA to cater to the needs of China’s then developing industry, AchemAsia has since grown into a platform where the latest...

Im Focus: First real-time test of Li-Fi utilization for the industrial Internet of Things

The BMBF-funded OWICELLS project was successfully completed with a final presentation at the BMW plant in Munich. The presentation demonstrated a Li-Fi communication with a mobile robot, while the robot carried out usual production processes (welding, moving and testing parts) in a 5x5m² production cell. The robust, optical wireless transmission is based on spatial diversity; in other words, data is sent and received simultaneously by several LEDs and several photodiodes. The system can transmit data at more than 100 Mbit/s and five milliseconds latency.

Modern production technologies in the automobile industry must become more flexible in order to fulfil individual customer requirements.

Im Focus: Sharp images with flexible fibers

An international team of scientists has discovered a new way to transfer image information through multimodal fibers with almost no distortion - even if the fiber is bent. The results of the study, to which scientist from the Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technology Jena (Leibniz IPHT) contributed, were published on 6thJune in the highly-cited journal Physical Review Letters.

Endoscopes allow doctors to see into a patient’s body like through a keyhole. Typically, the images are transmitted via a bundle of several hundreds of optical...

Im Focus: Photoexcited graphene puzzle solved

A boost for graphene-based light detectors

Light detection and control lies at the heart of many modern device applications, such as smartphone cameras. Using graphene as a light-sensitive material for...

Im Focus: Water is not the same as water

Water molecules exist in two different forms with almost identical physical properties. For the first time, researchers have succeeded in separating the two forms to show that they can exhibit different chemical reactivities. These results were reported by researchers from the University of Basel and their colleagues in Hamburg in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

From a chemical perspective, water is a molecule in which a single oxygen atom is linked to two hydrogen atoms. It is less well known that water exists in two...