/ News
Magnetic nanoparticles used to control thousands of cells simultaneously
Using clusters of tiny magnetic particles about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have shown that they can manipulate how thousands of cells divide, morph and develop finger-like extensions.
This new tool could be used in developmental biology to understand how tissues develop, or in cancer research to uncover how cancer cells move and invade surrounding tissues, the researchers said.
The UCLA team's findings were published online Oct. 14 in the journal Nature Methods. A cell can be considered a complex biological machine that receives an assortment of "inputs" and produces specific "outputs," such as growth, movement, division or the production of molecules.
Beyond the type of input, cells are extremely sensitive to the location of an input, partly because cells perform "spatial multiplexing," reusing the same basic biochemical signals for different functions at different locations within the cell. Understanding this localization of signals is particularly challenging because scientists lack tools with sufficient resolution and control to function inside the miniature environment of a cell.
And any usable tool would have to be able to perturb many cells with similar characteristics simultaneously to achieve an accurate distribution of responses, since the responses of individual cells can vary. To address this problem, an interdisciplinary UCLA team that included associate professor of bioengineering Dino Di Carlo, postdoctoral scholar Peter Tseng and professor of electrical engineering Jack Judy developed a platform to precisely manipulate magnetic nanoparticles inside uniformly shaped cells. These nanoparticles produced a local mechanical signal and yielded distinct responses from the cells.
By determining the responses of thousands of single cells with the same shape to local nanoparticle-induced stimuli, the researchers were able to perform an automated averaging of the cells' response.
To achieve this platform, the team first had to overcome the challenge of moving such small particles (each measuring 100 nanometers) through the viscous interior of a cell once the cells engulfed them. Using ferromagnetic technologies, which enable magnetic materials to switch "on" and "off," the team developed an approach to embed a grid of small ferromagnetic blocks within a microfabricated glass slide and to precisely place individual cells in proximity to these blocks with a pattern of proteins that adhere to cells.
When an external magnetic field is applied to this system, the ferromagnetic blocks are switched "on" and can therefore pull the nanoparticles within the cells in specific directions and uniformly align them.
The researchers could then shape and control the forces in thousands of cells at the same time. Using this platform, the team showed that the cells responded to this local force in several ways, including in the way they divided.
When cells go through the process of replication to create two cells, the axis of division depends on the shape of the cell and the anchoring points by which the cell holds on to the surface. The researchers found that the force induced by the nanoparticles could change the axis of cell division such that the cells instead divided along the direction of force.
The researchers said this sensitivity to force may shed light on the intricate forming and stretching of tissues during embryonic development. Besides directing the axis of division, they found that nanoparticle-induced local force also led to the activation of a biological program in which cells generate filopodia, which are finger-like, actin-rich extensions that cells often use to find sites to adhere to and which aid in movement.
Di Carlo, the principal investigator on the research, envisions that the technique can apply beyond the control of mechanical stimuli in cells. "Nanoparticles can be coated with a variety of molecules that are important in cell signaling," he said. "We should now have a tool to quantitatively investigate how the precise location of molecules in a cell produces a specific behavior.
This is a key missing piece in our tool-set for understanding cell programs and for engineering cells to perform useful functions."
Source: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-magnetic-nanoparticles-thousands-cells-simultaneously.html
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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