Bench Press

The future of blogging...humans not included

I was taking a look at Engadget earlier today and happened upon this post. That tiny little robot featured next to the laptop is not just a trendy desk accessory, but a full time blogging machine. The NetTansorWeb is Wi-Fi enabled, contains a small camera in its head with which to scout the human race’s weaknesses take pictures of its surroundings and post to a blog with short comments!

At my previous job my department worked with high-throughput machines in a variety of experiments, speeding up compound screening and assay development. Now if only someone could transfer some of the “smarts” the NetTansorWeb seems to have to my qPCR machine. I certainly wouldn’t mind some short comments along with my results. Until then I look forward to seeing what these robots will be blogging about… maybe we can add one to the payroll.

Read more at Bouncing Red Ball.

I’ve been told biologists are just haters, but who needs to know why things have mass when we can find the Darwin particle!

A depiction of what the silicon nanowires look like. This array of nanowire detectors is able to detect single proteins in the bloodstream. Each nanowire corresponds to a different antibody. Credit: Vista Therapeutics

I can see it now. Season 43 of House M.D. House asks his team of fellows to determine the concentration of a certain protein in a patient’s bloodstream. Instead of taking multiple blood samples and performing several tests, including purifying the samples, marking the designated proteins, and using imaging technology to check for the labeled proteins, the fellows simply use special nanowire sensors to accomplish in five minutes what originally took 90 minutes. Although House may not be around for 43 seasons, the scene just described may be commonplace in hospitals all over the world. This ground-breaking technology is currently being researched by Vista Therapeutics, as they aim to provide the “ultimate sensitivity” with this new product.

Here is a description provided by the MIT Technology Review:

To make the detectors, Vista Therapeutics has licensed nanowire sensing technologies developed by Harvard University chemist Charles Lieber. Silicon nanowires, semiconducting wires as thin as two nanometers, have what Lieber calls the “ultimate sensitivity,” even with completely unprocessed samples such as blood. When a single protein binds to an antibody along the wire, the current flowing through the wire changes. Arrays of hundreds of nanowires, each designed to detect a different molecule in the same sample, can be arranged on tiny, inexpensive chips. The changes can be monitored continuously as molecules bind and unbind, making it possible to detect subtle trends over time, without requiring multiple blood draws.

The standard protein-detection technique, ELISA, is very sensitive but, Farr says, takes 90 minutes to perform. It starts with a blood draw that must be extensively processed–first to purify the proteins, then to label them with fluorescent dyes–and then tested with expensive imaging equipment in a hospital lab. “ELISA is a powerful technology for one-time measurements,” says Farr, “but there’s no existing technology for continuous biomarker measurement.”

With the ability to perform extremely precise, continuous monitoring of unprocessed blood samples, who knows what the future holds in store for nanowire detectors. You can be sure that I’ll be waiting for its debut on House.

Helpings hands? This metal-and-polymer gripper, triggered chemically, could usher in a new era of minimally invasive surgery. Credit: Timothy Leong/JHU

The other day I happened upon this article and I couldn’t help but be impressed. Today minimally invasive surgery implies smaller incisions, but incisions nonetheless. How would you like minimally invasive to mean zero incisions?  If Dr. Gracias and his colleagues have their way that may soon become a reality.

From the MIT Technology Review:

The new technology is a step toward surgical tools that move more freely inside the human body. “We want to make mobile surgical tools,” says David Gracias, a biomolecular- and chemical-engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, who led the development of the new gripper. “The ultimate goal is to have a machine that you can swallow, or [to] inject small structures that move and can do things [on their own].”

A gripper based on the current design could respond autonomously to chemical cues in the body. For example, it might react to the biochemicals released by infected tissue by closing around the tissue, so that pieces can be removed for analysis.

Gracias and his colleagues presented the microgripper at the American Chemical Society meeting earlier this month. To demonstrate the device, they used it to grasp and maneuver tiny beads and clumps of cells in a petri dish. They have also used the device in the laboratory to perform an in vitro biopsy on a cow’s bladder. “This is the first mobile micromachine that has been shown convincingly to do very useful things,” Gracias says. “And it does not require electric power for operation.”

In it’s current iteration the gripper is maneuvered by magnets thereby removing the need for any incisions. As a scientist I can’t help but wonder when this remarkable device can be made available for laboratory use. Being able to manipulate items at a microscopic level based on chemical features could be very useful. In the meantime I look forward to a future of incision free biopsies!