This Month’s Top 8 Picks

Every month Scientist’s platform gets more innovative with hundreds of new tools, technologies, and services. The platform users gain on-demand access to recently commercialized innovations ranging from exciting optogenetic tools to freshly developed 3D culture systems. The innovations we select come from a wide range of sources such as conferences, technical papers, interviews from the industry leaders etc.

Here’re the top 8 innovation picks for this month:

1. Patient-Derived 3D Cell Culture (PD3D™) Tumor Models

Use PD3D cultures to interrogate the mutation status of selected clinically relevant oncogenes and tumor suppressors.

The future of cancer treatments lies in the development of personalized strategies for individual cancer patients (precision medicine). Personalized treatment can be supported by generating an individual PD3D culture for each patient for sensitivity screening with cancer drugs.

2. AngioChip: “Person-on-a-Chip” Technology

Use the AngioChip to connect blood vessels of two artificial organs to model each organ and their interactions with each other.

In the last few years, it has become possible to culture human cells in vitro for testing. Human cell cultures in a 2D environment, however, fail to simulate all the functionalities of human organs. The AngioChip provides a platform for growing organs in the lab that simulates the human body (AngioChip). This platform could enable drug companies to detect dangerous side effects and interactions among organs. In future, these lab-grown tissues could even be implanted into the body to repair organs damaged by disease.

3. Global Stem Cell Array Technology™

Generate iPSC lines from tissue samples obtained from neuropathy patients.

The Global Stem Cell Array™ robotic technology is used to create stem cell lines from skin samples obtained from patients with schizophrenia. These stem cells can be grown into mature brain cells to examine how psychiatric disease alters different brain tissue.

4. APP/PS1 Double Transgenic Mouse Model

Investigate emergent therapies to prevent and/or reduce the neuropathological features of Alzheimer’s disease.

Double transgenic mice develop large numbers of fibrillar amyloid α (Aα) deposits in the cerebral cortex and in the hippocampus and express memory deficits as early as 8 – 12 weeks of age. These mouse models can be used to characterize cognitive deficits.

5. Magnetic Cell Levitation

Coax cells to assemble into 3D tissue constructs in culture using magnetic rings.

Traditional 2D cell cultures are unnatural environments for cell growth, resulting in changes to gene expression, signaling, and cell morphology. To avoid these unintended effects, 3D cell culture techniques use protein-based gels and rotational and agitation-based bioreactors.

6. BM-HPME™ Platform

Use 3D Biological Matrix to enhance cell performance both in vitro and in vivo.

Producing scalable quantities of stem cells creates new hope for treating and, in some cases perhaps, even curing human diseases. BM-HPME® is an advanced stem cell culture system that mimics the 3D “home” in which stem cells naturally reside and proliferate. This technology enables users to isolate and grow stem cells from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, adipose, bone marrow, and umbilical cord blood/tissue.

7. Electric Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS®)

Study the activities of cells grown in tissue culture, such as morphological changes and cell locomotion.

ECIS® is an in vitro impedance measuring system to quantify the behavior of cells within adherent cell layers. Measuring cellular impedance in this manner allows the automated study of cell attachment, growth, morphology, function, and motility.

8. ClariCELL™ Assay Technology

Detect post-translational modifications in a physiologically relevant cellular setting.

The ClariCELL™ kinase assay platform is a unique system that directly quantifies specific kinase phosphorylation activity in the physiologically relevant context of human cells. It features transient expression of full length kinases in HEK293 cells and quantification of phosphorylation by conventional antibody-based detection.

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