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When they do reach the point of animal testing, the researchers plan to start by loading the backpacks with a trackable substance--perhaps the magnetic nanoparticles, which can be imaged by MRI, or perhaps fluorescent molecules. That will allow the team to determine how the cells migrate, and whether they reach the desired targets.
Eventually, Rubner and his colleagues envision using the backpacks for therapies that retool the body's own immune system to attack diseased or cancerous tissue. For example, immune cells could be removed from the bloodstream, equipped with backpacks, activated to home in on a tumor, and returned to the body. There, they would deliver their cargo--be it an imaging agent or a chemotherapeutic drug--directly to the tumor, sparing healthy tissues from exposure to the toxic payload.
The researchers initially expected that each backpack would adhere uniformly to its carrier cell's surface, much like a Band-Aid. Instead, the patches seemed to stick firmly at one spot, with the rest dangling off--sort of like a real backpack, which anchors only at the shoulders, says Rubner. This unexpected phenomenon might actually come in handy, he says. Immune cells need to squeeze through narrow openings in the body; a plastered-on pack might make cells less pliable, while a dangling pack could be pulled through.
For the most part, the cells and backpacks hooked up in a one-to-one ratio. But occasionally, under certain conditions, giant clumps of aggregated cells and backpacks formed. Because the backpacks didn't lie flat against the cells, more than one cell could latch on to a single patch, or more than one patch could attach to a cell. Rubner hopes that his team can learn how to manipulate this process, perhaps serving as a basis for bottom-up tissue engineering.
"This is a new approach," says Rubner. "There's a lot of flexibility in what you can do with it, and we're hopeful that flexibility is going to turn into something that's going to have great value for society."
"But that's going to take a while," he adds.
A new kind of nanoscopic valve that responds to pH changes may allow for the targeted release of drugs.
Researchers are testing a cancer-fighting film that could be applied directly to a tumor site.
An even simpler application...
Ever hear of the Kanzius Machine??
One critical missing piece of THAT development effort is the required ability to deliver significant quantities of conductive nano-particles directly to targeted cancer cells. Because ~IFF~ that delivery can be arranged with reasonable precision, those targeted cells can be completely disrupted, almost trivially.
Magnetic nano-particles can be imaged using MRI (if I remember correctly) AND can be grossly positioned (with high confidence) using magnetic field gradients -- leaving the final precision-positioning task to the piggy-backed immune cells themselves. If the magnetic nano-particles can also be arranged to be conductive in the right RF field environment, we would appear to have an effectively complete feedback-control-AND-payload package.
This "backpacking" technology could become an integral part of making the treatment of most cancers dramatically simpler, rendering unnecessary most forms of radiation therapy.
May be far fetched but isn't this another feature to manipulate the body; Kind of where Aubrey De Gray brings up repairing the body
I'm thinking less back-pack and more simple genetic code. A virus infects a cell with code, and so tinker with the virus and have the virus inject the normal code back into the cell. Or is this too simplistic..., once the damage has been done to the system of cells e.g. the damn collapses, no amount of re-infection fixes things. Perhaps with some situations this may be.
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flared0ne
395 Comments
Bacteria sized LEGOs...
So as soon as you imply that it is possible for a single "backpack" to inadvertently "bridge" between two different cells, you've opened the doors to the creation of useful chimera... Particularly if the "backpack" (we're going to need a different word for that "tier platform" any day now) affords any form of controllable interface to the piggy-backed cell, then what we have is a device platform that can be attached to one or more functionally-chosen "engine" bases. Antibody programmable immune cells are already evidenced -- alternative "engines" of flagellum or ciliate cells could provide motive power (or manipulative capabilities, with modified cilia or flagella?) to complex assemblies. Orientation by field detection using magnetic nanoparticles should be trivial... Awesome potentials here.
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