/ News
Miniature Chip Detects Rogue Cancer Cells
For cancer patients, things go from bad to worse when tumor cells escape into the bloodstream. The marauding cells—sometimes just one among a billion blood cells—can lodge anywhere in the body, spreading cancer in a process called metastasis. Now, researchers have developed a device that can detect even a single cell of any type of cancer circulating in blood, allowing early treatment of metastasis and new insights into cancer genetics.
Cancer cells that migrate into the bloodstream are called circulating tumor cells (CTCs). In 2007, a team led by biomedical engineer Mehmet Toner of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston devised a method to trap and detect CTCs on a silicon chip the size of a microscope slide etched with microchannels each no wider than a hair. Toner pumped samples of whole blood through the channels, which were coated with an antibody designed to trap any cancer cell that carries a common surface protein, much as flypaper snags pesky insects. But cancer cells without that protein, such as melanoma (a type of skin cancer), slid past undetected.
The new device gets around that limitation. Called the CTC-iChip system (the "i" is for "inertial focusing"), it targets blood cells instead of cancer cells. Sorting by cell size, the first chip skims off small red blood cells and platelets, letting only CTCs and white blood cells flow past. Then, a second chip winds the cells through curving channels, channeling the remaining cells into a single-file line. Magnetic beads the size of a bacterium attach to specific surface proteins on white blood cells, and a magnetic field nudges these cells out of the stream of CTCs. That leaves just the CTCs, which can be collected in a vial and individually analyzed by conventional lab methods.
The clinical application of this technology is clear, says lead author Emre Ozkumur, a biomedical engineer also at Massachusetts General Hospital who developed the system with Toner. Early CTC detection allows doctors to begin antimetastatic treatments, he says, potentially slowing or stopping cancer's final, fatal onslaught.
Not all CTCs develop into metastatic tumors, however, and cancer researchers are still discovering why. Because CTCs show such large amounts of genetic variation, analyzing cells in bulk won't reveal the reason, Ozkumur says. "You have to analyze one by one."
The team, which reports its findings online today in Science Translational Medicine, is already pondering its next improvements to bring manufacturing costs down and prepare the CTC-iChip for clinical use. The researchers' to-do list includes integrating the current two-chip system into one, Ozkumur says.
The group's work is "a solid advance," says engineer Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Langer, who holds more than 800 biomedical patents, applauds the improvements in this device compared with previous models. Other diseases, such as the rare lung disease LAM, also involve circulating abnormal cells, Langer says. This technology may advance research in those diseases as well.
Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/miniature-chip-detects-rogue-can.html?ref=hp
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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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