Source: Discovery News

Original paper: PNAS – Bioinspired multivalent DNA network for capture and release of cells

A new device inspired by jellyfish tentacles can be used to both count and sort cancer cells, which is an important indicator of how well chemotherapy or other treatments are working.
Source: Rohit Karnik and Suman Bose

Tiny strands of DNA that float like jellyfish tentacles can grab and hold tumor cells in the bloodstream in a device inspired by nature that may help cancer patients fight the dreaded disease.

The device can be used to both count and sort cancer cells, which is an important indicator of how well chemotherapy or other treatments are working. Doctors need to know whether cancer cells are being knocked out or developing immunity.

“The key is to know which drugs the remaining cells would be most susceptible to,” said Jeffrey Karp, an author on the paper published today in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Science (PNAS) and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Often these cells in the blood stream are at very low concentrations and it’s difficult to isolate them. What you really want to do is collect them and study the biology of the cells and subject them to different kinds of chemo so you know which one is best to use.”

Read more on Discovery News: Jellyfish-Inspired Tentacles Capture Cancer…

Source: MIT News

Inspiration from a porcupine’s quills

The North American porcupine
Photo: Mike Cuccarese

Read more on MIT News – Inspiration from a porcupine’s quills…