About microfluidics at first hand
Expert: biological machines will help cure cancer
The II International Symposium "Engineering and Physical Technologies of Biomedicine" was held at MEPhI. One of the main guests of the Symposium was Professor Roger Kamm of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, winner of the ASME Lissner Award (2010) and the European Society of Biomechanics Huiskes Medal (2015). The scientist told RIA Novosti about the possibilities and prospects of modern biomechanics.
© NIYAU MEPHI
– Roger, you are working with biological machines that are able to manipulate the cells of a living organism. Please tell us what function they perform?
– Biological machines are called peculiar robots capable of working with the cells of our body – to create them and assemble more complex structures from the resulting cells. Machines perform a variety of functions, and, of course, their appearance depends on the task for which they are created. For example, with their help, researchers at the Center for Mechanobiology and Microfluidics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are trying to understand the processes by which cells "communicate", interact with each other and develop higher-level structures.
Let's take vascular cells, which we observe in a 3D matrix. They are arranged in such a way as to form vascular nerves. And muscles are assembled from muscle cells. Elements of a higher order (muscles or vessels) with several types of cells included in their composition perform functions that individual cells cannot perform. With the help of biological machines, we generate individual cells by placing them in a microfluidic (that is, with a small volume or fluid flow) device. There they interact with each other and develop a higher-level function that we can analyze.
Microfluidic device
CC BY-SA 3.0 / Richard Wheeler (Zephyris) /
Microfluidic devices, including micrographs of one of the channels
– Is it possible to simulate complex biological processes on a computer using neural networks, or is their "power" still not enough for this?
– Of course you can. The ability to simulate pathological and normal biological processes of the body in the microfluidic system allows you to observe in detail the behavior and, in particular, cell death. And observation can be carried out in all organs and tissues inside the body! Modeling provides an opportunity to continuously observe what is happening in the body in high resolution, which opens up an unusually wide horizon for action.
Imagine this situation: you have hundreds of different compounds that, in your opinion, can be effective in treating this particular disease. Accordingly, you resort to the help of hundreds of microfluidic devices that help you test each of these drugs or therapies, and then understand which one is better. In addition, the development of this direction will allow us to create systems that are almost identical to our organisms (or parts of them), made from cells of a particular organism. Such an individual approach will answer the question of how this organism will react to a particular drug, for example, Alzheimer's disease.
– From your point of view, will the study of brain neurons and their connections allow us to create artificial intelligence that will be absolutely similar to human? If so, when will it happen?
– I think it is quite possible in the future. At the moment, we are already well able to form clusters of neurons. This allows you to reproduce some signal in the central nervous system. But in terms of obtaining new data, this experiment does not report anything special, except that you observe some fluctuations, the generation of electrical signals. Therefore, a real breakthrough in this area will occur when we get such clusters that will be similar to brain clusters, but at the same time they will be able to "teach" cells and control the receipt of information passing through them. This may well happen in about 10 years.
– What are your main developments aimed at at the moment? At what stage are they?
– The developments that we are engaged in will help determine the treatment based on the control of proliferation (tissue proliferation) or the relief of blood capillaries in which conduction is impaired. All this is applicable for diabetes therapy, trauma treatment and for oncology – because in order for patients to survive cancer, they need to ensure a normal blood supply. Our research intersects with the research of other teams working on the therapy of hypertension and other types of cardiovascular diseases. But, basically, of course, we strive to improve the therapy of metastatic cancer, because nine out of ten deaths of cancer patients are caused by metastases. And first of all, we are trying to simulate on a computer the process itself, in which cells form metastatic tumors. It was in order to talk about how our developments in microfluidics can help oncology that I came to the Symposium "Engineering and Physical Technologies of Biomedicine" at the MEPhI Research Institute.
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