Despite decades of research, cancer remains one of today’s most pressing health concerns. Traditional treatment approaches such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy can cause systemic toxicity and become ineffective when resistant tumors emerge. Recently, anticancer strategies have focused on drugs which specifically target tumor-related biological...

Cell culture is a fundamental research tool for countless biological applications from drug discovery to cancer research and regenerative medicine. While two-dimensional (2D) cell culture is ubiquitous in research settings, it fails to adequately consider the natural three-dimensional (3D) microenvironment of cells. As newer and better 3D cell culture...

Single-cell and cell cluster optical tomography, or Cell-CT, has found increasing application in life sciences basic research. Two limitations to its use in this area are that it can image only fixed cells, and the lack of thixotropic gels that can support live cells and also satisfy refractive index constraints. Researchers at the Biodesign Institute...

Determination of consumption/secretion rates of single-cell resolution has great potential for delivering detailed insights into early onset and development of various disease states as well as drug and stimulus response. Due the lack of sensitivity of current technologies, this information is difficult to obtain. Single cell measurements in vivo are...

High throughput parallel assays are needed to effectively identify and study biomolecules and their activity. Typically it takes a large number of repeated assays to get statistically significant data for studying biomolecules. However, fewer assays would be needed to get statistically meaningful results if the data were of higher quality. Because of...

Aminoglycoside antibiotics are known to prevent growth of gram-negative bacteria by inhibiting protein synthesis. Aminoglycosides possess biocompatible sugar groups as well as multiple amines in the same molecule. Their tenability and natural affinity towards nucleic acids makes them excellent candidates for generating diverse resins for multiple applications...

Standard diffusion-based crystallization methods are slow and difficult to quantitate, making them extremely ineffective. Initial materials for crystallization are prohibitively expensive, limiting applications such as serial femtosecond crystallography. Researchers around the world have been working on different micro-/nanobatch techniques to simplify...

3D macroporous gels/polymeric monoliths are finding increased utility in many applications including plasmid DNA binding, tissue engineering, tumor modeling, 3D cell cultures and studies, and so on. However, creating these gels is cumbersome, requires technical skill and is limited to smaller quantities. There is a need to be able to easily create multiple...

TRPV1 is a membrane protein ion channel that is activated at elevated temperatures. TRPV1 is modulated by various physical and chemical stimuli such as mild voltage, endogenous lipids, small proteins and pH in addition to high temperature and capsaicin. Due to its sensitivity to some noxious stimuli, TRPV1 is an excellent therapeutic target especially...

Nanoscience is widely used today across a diverse product array. Applications such as food containers for improved product freshness, textile coatings for impact minimization, battery technologies for increased product life, cosmetics and genetic screening for drug compatibility are examples of commercial products that use nanotechnology. Nanotechnology...