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MIT researchers are designing tools to analyze cells at the microscale. To understand the progression of complex diseases such as cancer, scientists have had to tease out the interactions between cells at progressively finer scales — from the behavior of a single tumor cell in the body on down to the activity of that cell’s inner machinery. To foster such discoveries, mechanical engineers at MIT are designing tools to image and analyze cellular dynamics at the micro- and nanoscale. Such tools, including microfluidics, membrane technology and metamaterials, may help scientists better characterize and develop therapies for cancer and other complex diseases. New medical discoveries depend on engineering advances in real-time, multifunctional imaging and quantitative analysis, says Nicholas Fang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering. “What we’ve learned so far is more or less the architecture of cells, and the next layer is the dynamics of cells,” says Fang, who is developing optical sensors to illuminate individual components within a cell. “Cells operate like a city, or a metropolitan area: You have traffic, flow of information, and logistics of materials, and responses related to different events. Medicine requires new modes of seeing these events with better precision in time and space.” Materials beyond nature Fang is developing new imaging tools from metamaterials — materials engineered to exhibit properties not normally found in nature. Such materials may be designed as “superlenses” that bend and refract light to image extremely small objects. For example, Fang says that today’s best imaging tools can capture signaling between individual neurons, which may appear as a fuzzy “plume” of neurotransmitters. A superlens, in contrast, would let scientists see individual neurotransmitter molecules at the scale of a few nanometers. Such acuity, he says, would allow scientists to identify certain chemical transmitters that are directly related to particular diseases. Metamaterials may also help scientists manipulate cells at the microscale. Fang is exploring the use of metamaterials as optical antennae to improve a technique known as optogenetics. This technique, developed in 2005 (and pioneered by MIT’s Ed Boyden, the Benesse Career Development Associate Professor of Research in Education), involves genetically engineering proteins to respond to light. Using various colors of light, scientists may control the activity or expression of such proteins to study the progression of disease. However, researchers have found that the technique requires a large amount of light to prompt a response, risking overheating or damaging the proteins of interest.
MIT researchers are designing tools to analyze cells at the microscale. To understand the progression of complex diseases such as cancer, scientists have had to tease out the interactions between cells at progressively finer scales — from the behavior of a single tumor cell in the body on down to the activity of that cell’s inner machinery. To foster such discoveries, mechanical engineers at MIT are designing tools to image and analyze cellular dynamics at the micro- and nanoscale. Such tools, including microfluidics, membrane technology and metamaterials, may help scientists better characterize and develop therapies for cancer and other complex diseases. New medical discoveries depend on engineering advances in real-time, multifunctional imaging and quantitative analysis, says Nicholas Fang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering. “What we’ve learned so far is more or less the architecture of cells, and the next layer is the dynamics of cells,” says Fang, who is developing optical sensors to illuminate individual components within a cell. “Cells operate like a city, or a metropolitan area: You have traffic, flow of information, and logistics of materials, and responses related to different events. Medicine requires new modes of seeing these events with better precision in time and space.” Materials beyond nature Fang is developing new imaging tools from metamaterials — materials engineered to exhibit properties not normally found in nature. Such materials may be designed as “superlenses” that bend and refract light to image extremely small objects. For example, Fang says that today’s best imaging tools can capture signaling between individual neurons, which may appear as a fuzzy “plume” of neurotransmitters. A superlens, in contrast, would let scientists see individual neurotransmitter molecules at the scale of a few nanometers. Such acuity, he says, would allow scientists to identify certain chemical transmitters that are directly related to particular diseases. Metamaterials may also help scientists manipulate cells at the microscale. Fang is exploring the use of metamaterials as optical antennae to improve a technique known as optogenetics. This technique, developed in 2005 (and pioneered by MIT’s Ed Boyden, the Benesse Career Development Associate Professor of Research in Education), involves genetically engineering proteins to respond to light. Using various colors of light, scientists may control the activity or expression of such proteins to study the progression of disease. However, researchers have found that the technique requires a large amount of light to prompt a response, risking overheating or damaging the proteins of interest.
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