THE TECH-LICIOUS: BIOSCIENCE

Laser device detects blood glucose levels without the finger-prick

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="A new system developed at Princeton University allows diabetics to check blood glucose lev..." height="358" src="http://images.gizmag.com/hero/laser-blood-glucose-diabetes.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finger-prick tests to monitor blood glucose levels can be the bane of a diabetic's life. In a move that could put an end to such tests in the future, researchers at Princeton University have developed a non-invasive way to test blood glucose levels using a laser.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Like a number of other blood glucose measuring research efforts we've seen in recent years, such as carbon nanotube "tattoos" and biochips that measure glucose in saliva, the Princeton team's method doesn't require direct analysis of a blood sample.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Instead, the new approach detects the level of blood sugar by directing a specialized laser at a person's palm and measuring the amount of absorption by the sugar molecules in the person's body. Rather than the person's blood, the laser targets dermal interstitial fluid, which has a strong correlation with blood sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Instead of near-infrared light, which is used by many medical devices, the Princeton team's method uses mid-infrared light. This is because although near infrared light is not blocked by water, making it suitable for use in the human body, it interacts with a number of acids and chemicals in the skin, making it unsuitable for detecting blood sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, the use of mid-infrared light presents its own problems – it is difficult to harness with standard lasers and requires relatively high power and stability to penetrate the skin and scatter off bodily fluid. The researchers found the answer in the form of a new type of device particularly capable of producing mid-infrared light called a quantum cascade laser.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/laser-blood-glucose-level-mesurement/33466/pictures#2" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e8dd7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="The new monitor uses a quantum cascade laser, instead of blood sample, to read blood sugar..." src="http://images.gizmag.com/inline/laser-blood-glucose-diabetes-1.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="530" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Quantum cascade lasers boast the ability to produce one of a number of frequencies by passing electrons through a "cascade" of semiconductor layers. Recent developments have also provided increased power and stability, allowing the researchers to produce mid-infrared light with the properties required to penetrate the skin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In testing the approach the researchers measured the blood sugar of three healthy subjects before and after eating 20 jellybeans and compared the results to measurements taken with a finger-prick test. These measurements were conducted repeatedly over a period of several weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although the laser measurement readings produced average errors larger than the standard blood sugar monitors, the research hers said they remained within the clinical requirement for accuracy. Glucose monitors need to produce a reading within 20 percent of the patient's actual level and the early version of the new system met that standard with an accuracy of 84 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"It works now but we are still trying to improve it," said Sabbir Liakat, the lead author of a paper detailing the new approach.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The experimental setup the team started with took up a moderate-sized workbench and required an elaborate cooling system to work. However, they have since solved the cooling problem, allowing the laser to work at room temperature, and will now look to shrinking the device.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"This summer, we are working to get the system on a mobile platform to take it places such as clinics to get more measurements," Liakat said. "We are looking for a larger dataset of measurements to work with."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">source-<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/laser-blood-glucose-level-mesurement/33466/" target="_blank">gizmag</a></span></div>
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Laser device detects blood glucose levels without the finger-prick

Finger-prick tests to monitor blood glucose levels can be the bane of a diabetic's life. In a move that could put an end to such te...

Organs-on-Chips emulate human organs, could replace animals in tests

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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><img alt="Emulate's lung-on-chip, seen here, is lined with human lung and blood vessel cells " height="358" src="http://images.gizmag.com/hero/emulate.jpg" title="Emulate's lung-on-chip, seen here, is lined with human lung and blood vessel cells " width="640" /> </span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The search for more efficient tests of pharmaceuticals without animal
 models is taking a stride forward, with a new technology being 
developed in the US called Organs-on-Chips. The new miniature platform 
and software, which mimic the mechanical and molecular characteristics 
of human organs, were developed by bioengineers from the Wyss Institute 
for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The device, about the size of a small computer memory stick, is 
created using microchip-manufacturing techniques. It features a porous 
flexible membrane that separates two channels at the center of the 
device. The channels are filled with living human cells and tissues 
cultured in a fluid that mimics the environment inside the human body. 
Micro-engineering and automated instrumentation allows the system to 
perform real-time analysis of biochemical, genetic and metabolic 
functions within single cells.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The idea is to authentically replicate, or "bioemulate" in 
science-speak, the workings of human organs. This way, scientists and 
even clinicians without high-level expertise can determine the efficacy 
and safety of potential new drugs, chemicals and cosmetics, with no 
animal models in the process.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Wyss Institute team has formed a company called Emulate to 
further develop and market the product. They have also developed a 
system to automate the chips and connect them with a blood-like medium 
in order to reproduce the experience of the whole human body on chips. 
This way, researchers can get a better picture of the responses of the 
body as one unit and not just as series of individual organs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"This advanced technology is the beginning of a revolution in the way
 we study human biology and disease," said senior scientist Geraldine 
Hamilton. She added that Emulate is more predictive of the human 
situation than animal models, besides being more cost-effective and less
 time-consuming. Therefore, new pharmaceuticals could get to market, and
 to those in need of them, more rapidly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Another aspect of the new technology is that it paves the way for 
more personalized treatment with stem cells. "Our vision is we can one 
day put each patient’s cells on chips that mimic the function of organs,
 and this will open up new ways for us to design truly personalized 
treatment with stem cells, based on each patient’s unique genetic 
profile on their own individualized Organs-on-Chips," added Shlomo 
Melmed, senior vice president for Academic Affairs and Dean of the 
medical faculty at Cedars-Sinai, one of the institutional investors in 
the new company.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Emulate has just secured a US$12 million Series A financing to 
develop the product for commercial purposes. The team will now focus on 
design, biology and engineering in order to further develop the 
technology and design new products for various industries.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Besides the lung-on-chip
 seen at the top of the page, in the last four years the researchers 
have also developed more than 10 types of organ/chips, including some 
that emulate the liver, gut, kidney, and bone marrow.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Elsewhere, other researchers are looking for methods to replace animal testing including the similarity ensemble approach and sensor nanoparticles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">SOURCE-<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/organs-on-chips-testing/33337/" target="_blank">GIZMAG</a> </span></span></div>
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Organs-on-Chips emulate human organs, could replace animals in tests

The search for more efficient tests of pharmaceuticals without animal models is taking a stride forward, with a new technology being ...

SCIENTISTS creates a living copy of Vincent Van Gogh's ear with relative's DNA

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<img alt="The living replica of Vincent Van Gogh's ear, grown using genetic material from one of his..." height="358" src="http://images.gizmag.com/hero/diemutstrebe.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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If you thought cloning mice, frogs and extinct mammoths to be challenging, how about cloning Vincent Van Gogh's ear? Dutch artist Diemut Strebe has grown a living replica of the ear that Vincent Van Gogh reportedly sliced off in a troubled episode, using genetic material from one of Van Gogh's direct descendants. With a lifespan of 80 years or more, the ear could live as long as any one of us, says Strebe, who is investigating the idea of replicating people from historical DNA.</div>
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"The ear is grown with Lieuwe van Gogh's cells," Strebe tells Gizmag. "By his natural relationship to Vincent, he carries in his cells the white chromosomes of Vincent and a 16th of his genome."</div>
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Strebe figured out the shape of the ear by looking at a historical photo of the artist, and extrapolated the measurements to create a 3D-printed mold that approximated its shape. A scaffold placed in the mold was seeded with Van Gogh's cells, which grew until the ear reached its final form. The result, states Strebe, is a true living piece.</div>
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"It has a metabolism," Strebe tells us. "It lives in a container, in a system which mimics our body. It has a lung, it has a heart, it has plasma and it even has oxygen exchange."</div>
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<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/artist-grows-living-copy-vincent-van-goghs-ear/32925/pictures#2" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e8dd7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="The ear has its own metabolism and lives in a bioreactor which effectively mimics the diff..." src="http://images.gizmag.com/inline/diemutstrebe-1.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="530" /></a></div>
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To make a system that supported the ear, she built a bioreactor that mimics the body's different parts. According to Strebe, the ear could live to be really old if it's well taken care of and given proper nutrition. To genetically engineer the ear to be as close to Vincen't Van Gogh's as possible, she collaborated with scientists at Harvard and MIT as part of a project called "Sugababe." Along with some of Van Gogh's genetic material, the ear is also made up of some genetically engineered components.</div>
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While she initially hoped to use Van Gogh's own DNA to grow the ear, that plan fell apart when donated letters that supposedly belonged to the artist (which took a year for her to source) were found to lack any trace of his DNA. Strebe next approached Lieuwe van Gogh, the great-great-grandson of Vincent's brother Theo Gogh, who readily donated a bit of his skin for the project. Strebe, who is currently trying to source other historical DNA to experiment with, says that the project brings up many interesting questions about human replication.</div>
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"Theoretically a historical person could be genetically created," Strebe tells us." There are many interesting questions involved about uniqueness, about the possibility to reconstruct somebody physically or how identical the result would be even if you get to that point. The questions involved are similar to those when Plutarch talked about the Ship of Thesus – whether a ship would be the same ship if all its parts were replaced?".</div>
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The living ear was exhibited recently at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany.</div>
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SOURCE-<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/artist-grows-living-copy-vincent-van-goghs-ear/32925/" target="_blank">GIZMAG</a></div>
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SCIENTISTS creates a living copy of Vincent Van Gogh's ear with relative's DNA

If you thought cloning mice, frogs and extinct mammoths to be challenging, how about cloning Vincent Van Gogh's ear? Dutch artist Di...