Chennai, May 17 (UNI) The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras
(IIT-M) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists
have grown human brain tissues called ‘organoids’ with help of a
3D Printed Bioreactor that they developed.
The objective was to observe the brain tissues while they grow
and develop, a technology that can potentially accelerate medical
and therapeutic discoveries for diseases such as cancer and
neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
'Cell culture is one of the fundamental steps in validation of the
human organ model, whether it may be a pre-clinical study for
COVID-19, cancer medicine discovery or any medicine to be
used on humans', a release from IIT-M said today.
There is an open challenge in growing cells for long durations
and studying them in real-time to gain a better understanding
of the effects of medicine.
The present cell culture protocols involve separate chambers
for incubation and imaging, requiring that cells are physically
transferred to the imaging chamber.
However, this poses the risk of false results and chances for
contamination, it said.
IIT-Madras and MIT scientists came up with a novel solution,
which let the cell grow uninterruptedly.
In this invention, a 3D printed micro-incubator and imaging
chamber was made into a single palm-sized platform, which
was successfully demonstrated for long-term human brain
cells culture and real-time imaging.
The findings of this research were published in the reputed,
peer-reviewed international journal Biomicrofluidics.
The Research team included Mr.Ikram Khan (first author) and
Prof.Anil Prabhakar from IIT-Madras and Ms.Chloe Delepine,
Ms.Hayley Tsang, Mr.Vincent Pham, and Prof.Mriganka Sur
from MIT.
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