 |
A Drexel University team of engineers, scientists and biologists have developed a carbon nanotube-based device for probing single living cells without damaging them. ...
Multifunctional carbon-nanotube cellular endoscopes
Artist renderings of a nano-needle poking a single cell have become the symbol of nanotechnology, surfacing on covers of magazines and books for about a decade but actual nano-needles able to interrogate small cells without causing cellular damage have not become reality until recently. A Drexel University team of engineers, scientists and biologists have developed a carbon nanotube-based device for probing single living cells without damaging them. This technique will allow experts to identify diseases in their early stage and advance drug discovery.
The research led by Dr. Yury Gogotsi, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanotechnology Institute (DNI) , and Dr. Gary Friedman, professor of electrical engineering, uses the nanotube-based device, known as a cellular endoscope, to evaluate cells about a thousand times smaller than a human hair. The cellular endoscope interrogates the intracellular environment of living cells, delivers fluorescent quantum dots and analyzes molecules inside a cell without the cell recognizing the needle’s presence.
“Drexel’s W. M. Keck Institute for Attofluidic Probes now manufactures the smallest endoscopes ever created,” Gogotsi said. “Endoscopes provide a potentially transformative technology for studying the fundamentals of single living cells and more broadly, for cell biology.”
Cell biologists usually destroy a large number of cells to extract cellular components and biological molecules needed for identifying diseases and analyzing effects of new drugs, or to achieve a better understanding of how the cell functions. Glass pipettes are widely used to inject material into cells. The pipettes cause too much damage to remain within the cell for a long time and are not designed to report information in the form of optical or electrical signals from within the cell.
“We had an idea for a minimally invasive cellular probe, the tip of which could remain within the cell for a long time while reporting important information in the form of optical and electrical signals and transferring tiny amounts of material to and from the cell. This probe is similar to an endoscope employed by doctors to perform minimally invasive operations inside human patients, only much smaller” said Friedman. “A cellular endoscope reported here is a novel, but conceptually simple device,” said Riju Singhal, a doctoral candidate and author of the article “Multifunctional carbon-nanotube cellular endoscopes” published in the Nature Nanotechnology journal.
“It consists of a single carbon nanotube connected to the tips of larger glass micropipettes that are commonly employed in biological studies, enabling them to become widely used in the near future,” said Singhal.
Dr. Michael Schrlau, research assistant professor in Drexel’s Material Science and Engineering who directs the research laboratory of the W. M. Keck Institute, said, “We’re now building upon the multiple demonstrated functions of cellular endoscopes to help answer elusive cell biological questions. One application of cellular endoscopes being actively pursued is intracellular surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy with gold-coated endoscopes.”
The Drexel team is funded by the Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team National Science Foundation grant and the W. M. Keck Foundation.
Reference:
Drexel Researchers Create Early Disease Detection and Drug Delivery Device for Single Living Cells// http://www.drexel.edu/news/headlines/drexel-researchers-create-early-disease-detection-and-drug-delivery-device-for-single-living-cells.aspx
Here we demonstrate a new developed method for depositing Ti3C2Tx MXenes onto hydrophobic electrospun PCL membranes using oxygen plasma treatment. These novel patches hold tremendous potential for providing mechanical support to damaged heart tissue and enabling electrical signal transmission,thereby mimicking the crucial electroconductivity required for normal cardiac function. After a detailed investigation of scaffold-to-cell interplay, including electrical stimulation, novel technology has the potential for clinical application not only for cardiac regeneration, but also as neural and muscular tissue substitutes.
MX-MAP project participants from MRC Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna performed split secondment visit to project partner organization University of Padova (Italy). MX-MAP project works on development of the key strategies for MXene medical applications. 
CanbioSe Project Meeting and Project Workshop was held at European Institute of Membranes (IEM), University of Montpellier, France on September 26-27, 2023. The workshop was focused on the theme of "Commercializing Biosensors, Intellectual Property, and Knowledge Transfer from Academia to Industry.
Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna visited IEEE NAP 2023 conference held in Bratislava on September 10-15, 2023. The prime focus of the IEEE NAP-2023 was on nanoscale materials with emphasis on interdisciplinary research exploring and exploiting their unique physical and chemical proprieties for practical applications.
Director of MRC and Carbon-Ukraine Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi visited CEST labs in Wiener Neustadt (Low Energy Ion Scattering, Batteries development) and TU Vienna (ELSA, SFA). He meet with Dr. Pierluigi Bilotto, Dr. Chriatian Pichler and their colleagues, discussing novel materials and r&d activities for new technologies.
MX-MAP Session was held during the YUCOMAT Conference 2023 titled: "Towards MXenes’ biomedical applications by high-dimensional immune MAPping", HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01 project MX-MAP.
CANBIOSE project participants from MRC Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna performed secondment visit to project partner organization European Institute of Membranes in Montpellier (France) on August -September 2023.
MRC researchers Dr. Oleksiy Gogotsi and Veronika Zahorodna were visiting Nanobiomedical Centre, Adam Mickewicz University in Poznan, Poland due to close collaboration with AMU team led by Dr. Igor Iatsunskiy. 
Meeting during the MXene international conference held in Drexel University on Aug. 3, 2022, and discussing the roadmap for launching MX-MAP research project on MXenes for medical applications.