Aug 5, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
MIT researchers expand genetic screening with new diagnostic technologies
Make way for what is being called “whole animal assays.” This new approach utilizes a lab on a chip to allow researchers to perform whole animal screening at sub-cellular resolutions in what is described as a “high throughput” manner. The new diagnostic technology was developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MIT researchers developed this unique whole animal assay testing chip using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The resulting lab-on-a-chip makes it easier to conduct genetic research into neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The traditional method of manipulating C. elegans involves using small glass and metal picks and anesthetizing the animals before submitting them for high-resolution imaging, according to Mehmet Fatih Yanik, an Assistant Professor at MIT, and Christopher Rohde, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Yanik and Rohde wrote about their research in a report published in Biomedical Optics & Medical Imaging earlier this year. Yanik runs the BioPhotonics, BioScreening and NanoManipulation Group lab at MIT. (more…)
Jul 7, 2008 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Microbiologists and hospital infection control teams are intensifying efforts to identify and control infections of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Now comes news of a new tool that can provide another way to control such infections.
Timothy Lu, a Harvard Medical School student and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. recipient, has found a way to use bacteriophage-viruses that infect bacteria cells but not human ones-to boost the effectiveness of antibiotics. This development could prove instrumental to conquering the problem of antibiotic-resistant drugs, such as methacillin-resistant Staphylococus aureas, which causes 94,000 cases of life-threatening infections among hospital patients each year.
Lu has engineered bacteriophage to cut through biofilm-the slick, protective coating that covers bacteria-and to seek out the gene mutations that create antibiotic resistance. The bacteriophage then destroy the resistance mechanisms, enabling antibiotic drugs to perform better. The combination of engineered bacteriophage and antibiotics have the potential to eliminate nearly 30,000 times more bacteria than antibiotics alone.
Lu received the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize of $30,000 for inventing the bacteriophage platform. He is developing a secondary use of the platform that would allow bacteriophage to kill off deadly biofilms that attach themselves to food processing equipment and medical instruments.
The success of Lu’s invention could spell out a much better prognosis for patients who are discovered to have methacillin-resistant Staphylococus aureas (MRSA) based on confirmation by hospital-based laboratory tests. Laboratories always welcome medical advancements that make a positive result from a laboratory test less devastating/life-threatening to patients. Lu’s new technology may have applications in the treatment of numerous other superbugs and antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains.
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