Posted on 08/07/2017 6:28:56 PM PDT by buckalfa
Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State's College of Engineering have developed a new technology, Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), that can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient's own body. This technology may be used to repair injured tissue or restore function of aging tissue, including organs, blood vessels and nerve cells.
Results of the regenerative medicine study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
"By using our novel nanochip technology, injured or compromised organs can be replaced. We have shown that skin is a fertile land where we can grow the elements of any organ that is declining," said Dr. Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State's Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who co-led the study with L. James Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with Ohio State's College of Engineering in collaboration with Ohio State's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.
Researchers studied mice and pigs in these experiments. In the study, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells to become vascular cells in badly injured legs that lacked blood flow. Within one week, active blood vessels appeared in the injured leg, and by the second week, the leg was saved. In lab tests, this technology was also shown to reprogram skin cells in the live body into nerve cells that were injected into brain-injured mice to help them recover from stroke.
"This is difficult to imagine, but it is achievable, successfully working about 98 percent of the time. With this technology, we can convert skin cells into elements of any organ with just one touch. This process only takes less than a second and is non-invasive, and then you're off. The chip does not stay with you, and the reprogramming of the cell starts. Our technology keeps the cells in the body under immune surveillance, so immune suppression is not necessary," said Sen, who also is executive director of Ohio State's Comprehensive Wound Center.
TNT technology has two major components: First is a nanotechnology-based chip designed to deliver cargo to adult cells in the live body. Second is the design of specific biological cargo for cell conversion. This cargo, when delivered using the chip, converts an adult cell from one type to another, said first author Daniel Gallego-Perez, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and general surgery who also was a postdoctoral researcher in both Sen's and Lee's laboratories.
TNT doesn't require any laboratory-based procedures and may be implemented at the point of care. The procedure is also non-invasive. The cargo is delivered by zapping the device with a small electrical charge that's barely felt by the patient.
"The concept is very simple," Lee said. "As a matter of fact, we were even surprised how it worked so well. In my lab, we have ongoing research trying to understand the mechanism and do even better. So, this is the beginning, more to come."
Researchers plan to start clinical trials next year to test this technology in humans, Sen said.
Funding for this research was provided by Leslie and Abigail Wexner, Ohio State's Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies and Ohio State's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.
Thanks for posting the video, but it left me mystified by how it works. I can make Excel tap dance and juggle, but the science behind the device is beyond my ability to understand.
You’re right to be wary.
One has to read the original article in Nature Regeneration to see what they are actually reporting.
Many many times the press releases and subsequent news reports such as this one are highly exaggerated and misleading with respect to the actual research published in the article that starts all the news reports.
Whenever there is a new biotechnology, the people promoting it and saying things that are too good to be true about it are usually looking for investors to fund the development of the technology. In most cases, the technology is not as miraculous as they initially claimed when trying to get investor funding, but it does turn out to have some beneficial effect.
This particular technology looks to me, by its name, to be an alternative method for genetic engineering within the body. As such, it will have no less and no more success than the many other methods of genetic engineering used for therapeutic purposes. "Classic" genetic engingeering was once hyped as a potential cure-all... that hasn't panned out, I think its uses are limited.
Correction, it’s Nature Nanotechnology.
Here is the article and abstract.
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2017.134.html
Although cellular therapies represent a promising strategy for a number of conditions, current approaches face major translational hurdles, including limited cell sources and the need for cumbersome pre-processing steps (for example, isolation, induced pluripotency)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. In vivo cell reprogramming has the potential to enable more-effective cell-based therapies by using readily available cell sources (for example, fibroblasts) and circumventing the need for ex vivo pre-processing7, 8. Existing reprogramming methodologies, however, are fraught with caveats, including a heavy reliance on viral transfection9, 10. Moreover, capsid size constraints and/or the stochastic nature of status quo approaches (viral and non-viral) pose additional limitations, thus highlighting the need for safer and more deterministic in vivo reprogramming methods11, 12. Here, we report a novel yet simple-to-implement non-viral approach to topically reprogram tissues through a nanochannelled device validated with well-established and newly developed reprogramming models of induced neurons and endothelium, respectively. We demonstrate the simplicity and utility of this approach by rescuing necrotizing tissues and whole limbs using two murine models of injury-induced ischaemia.
Aw, Bigg Red! That is so sweet of you!
*blush blush*
Farce.
Describes very complex biological activitied and technological devices very vaguely...example. ...nanotechnology chip...the cell is reprogrammed and “you’re off”, the device monitors the immune system...so you dont need to use immunosupression...the example of blood vessels being made by zapping skin cells...doesnt explain how they migrate to form a patent and connected vessel...the explanation of these cellular events sound as if written by a smart 6th grader...the language used is not that seen in technical journals....farce...although they can reprogram cells using other techniques....someday a more complex method may generate specific organ cells for deposition in appropriate locations...but it would not be reported with such verbage..
And yet further into the future, after all the miraculous innovations, Picard was still bald.
Bookmarked.
Michael Crichton wrote a book about nano particle swarms run amok.
It sounds like it converts cells into vascular cells which may mean more blood flow to help the new cells grow. But new cells with more blood flow may concentrate iron or heavy metals in a joint or other body part that develops into cancer. So it is premature to speculate any miraculous breakthroughs and surely its creators want hype to get initial stock prices up.
holly Hannah - can this be used for emphysema? renal failure? etc etc etc?
if this really works, it makes stem cell tech immediately obsolete
It goes back further than that. I remember that from the original series when McCoy did *surgery* on Kirk and Spock, and others.
Oh yeah - I know
But I had to do my special movie title.....
I found a video on you tube recently, which unfortunately I have not been able to find again, which showed a martial arts or self defense instructor, show pressure points on a persons face and head where if you touch them, the person experiences a jolt like electricity, or can actually be dropped to the floor almost unconscious if these pressure points are touched and pressed on.
IIRC, one is on the forehead and one is just under the cheekbones, the same places you see frauds like Benny Hinn touch or grab people.
The people then thin that they experienced the power of God in the sensation that follows or from being dropped to the floor when it’s simply nerve pressure points, much like a Spock pinch.
I sure wish I could find that video again. it was EXTREMELY good.
Good question. Clearly new laws will have be made to prevent certain people from using this. He would be top of the list of "no way Jose". Pelosi, Reid, McCain, geez the list is so long my fingers are already tired from just thinking about it. Anyway; you know the type who should never have their lives extended for any reason.
The type of people the world would be better off without them in it.
Imagine what a game changer this would be. It could regenerate nerve cells and things like severed spinal chords so people could walk again.
Endless potential if real.
Funny. I remember thinking male pattern baldness will be cured by the time I get that age. Well, I'm at that age and still no cure, someone is slacking.
Thanks. Yes, as a physicist working in a field bordering fusion energy, I am used to ridiculous hype!
Now get me in a shrinking ship with Raquel Welch, and lose Donald Pleasence, and I am all in.
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