The study, led by Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been published in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of June 27, 2011.
As the scientists looked into the numerous videos, which were produced to document and analyze the shapes of cells on micropatterns over time in culture, they noticed that the cell populations on micropatterns had a life of their own. These small communities of cells would undergo directional motion and form chiral alignment after a day or two of culture, with all cells moving in the same direction within the boundaries. Under contribution of Leo Wan, a postdoctoral scientist from her lab, they found that the direction of motion depended on cell type — that normal cells and cancer cells of the same type show opposite direction of motion, and that the mechanism by which the directional motion is established involves the actin stress fibers inside the cell.
The use of cell patterning techniques for studying cell asymmetry, or chirality, is entirely novel, and it enables obtaining a lot of biological and medical information by analyzing cell motion on tiny patterns.
Vunjak-Novakovic and her team plan to extend their research in several directions, by working together with developmental biologists, cancer biologists as well as scientists who are deal with cardiac tissue engineering.
Columbia has filed a patent application covering potential commercial applications of the discovery and, through its technology transfer office, Columbia Technology Ventures, is seeking partners to develop these applications.
Vunjak-Novakovic’s study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), through a Tissue Engineering Resource Center grant.
More information:
http://www.columbia.edu
http://www.techventures.columbia.edu
Source: http://www.innovations-report.de/
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Sunday, 10 July 2011 18:44
New technique to evaluate human stem cells Featured
A team of researchers at Columbia Engineering School has developed a new technique to evaluate human stem cells using cell micropatterning — a simple but powerful in vitro tool that will enable scientists to study the initiation of left-right asymmetry during tissue formation, to diagnose disease, and to study factors that could lead to certain birth defects.
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