Cells

Although chemotherapy is an effective cancer treatment, it’s shotgun approach also damages healthy cells bringing debilitating side effects such as nausea, liver toxicity and a battered immune system. Now a new way to deliver this life-saving therapy to cancer patients by getting straight to the source of the disease has been developed. The researchers responsible for the breakthrough delivery vehicle liken it to a cluster bomb for cancer because of its ability to deliver the drugs directly into cancer cells before releasing its chemotherapeutic payload.  Read More

Scientists from Ohio State University (OSU) have created a nanoparticle that can deliver DNA deeply enough into a cell to allow genetic material to be activated. This is a key step in gene therapy, the “reprogramming” of defective genes. Previously, scientists have used deactivated viruses for this task, but have been limited by the body’s immune system attacking those viruses. Nanoparticle delivery is reportedly two-and-a-half to ten times more effective, because it generates much less of an immune response.  Read More

Donor corneas are extremely rare, but for 40,000 people in Europe corneal transplantation from donors offer the only hope of addressing blindness in one or both eyes. That was, until Dr. Joachim Storsberg of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam-Golm created the first artificial cornea.  Read More

Earlier this year we looked at a technique to grow 3D cell cultures using magnetic forces to levitate cells while they divided and grew, forming tissues that more closely resemble those inside the human body. Now researchers at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) have devised a new way to achieve the same goal by using "biological Legos".  Read More

3D is the big news in the world of TV this year and now even cell cultures are getting in on the act. A team of scientists has taken aim at a biological icon - the two-dimensional petri dish – and unveiled a new technique for growing 3D cell cultures. The new process uses magnetic forces to levitate cells while they divide and grow to form tissues that more closely resemble those inside the human body. This represents a technological leap from the flat petri dish and could save millions of dollars in drug-testing costs.  Read More

Blood clotting is a complex cascade of events that works well for normal cuts and scrapes, however, more serious injuries can overwhelm the body’s natural blood-clotting process. With traumatic injury the leading cause of death for people aged 4 to 44, a team of researchers has sought a way to enhance the natural blood-clotting process by creating synthetic platelets that show promise in halting internal and external bleeding.  Read More

An engineering firm has developed a 3D bio-printer that could one day be used to create organs on demand for organ replacement surgery. The device is already capable of growing arteries and its creators say that arteries "printed" by the device could be used in heart bypass surgery in as little as five years. Meanwhile, more complex organs such as hearts, and teeth and bone should be possible within ten years.  Read More

In a world first, an international research team based in Melbourne, Australia, has developed a way to boost the output of the next generation of solar cells by creating a more efficient dye that makes dye-sensitive solar cells (DSSC) perform better than previous versions.  Read More

Synthetic cells that act as a battery could one day be used to power nanotech devices. Scientists from Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created a very simple cell model in order to study the way certain real cells generate electric voltages. In the process they produced a minute working battery that converts chemical energy into electrical energy at an efficiency of about 10 per cent - a figure that's high enough to make cell batteries a practical alternative as a nano power source.  Read More