Incubating Science
In this video, the IncubATR lets life scientists take advantage of infrared-based analysis technology. Cultured cells are difficult to study in real-time because they need constant food, shelter and warmth to stay alive. Now, researchers have hooked up a cell culture incubator to a spectroscope that detects, in living cells, important biological and chemical changes invisible to the naked eye. The invention will speed up scientific discovery, reduce costs and curtail the need for live animal testing in some cases.
Transcript
00:00:05 a team of scientists and engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in collaboration with Simplex scientific has developed a technology that for the first time makes rapid screening of live cells possible for various potential applications such as early cancer detection for example blood or tissue biomarkers petroleum exploration biomarkers pollution indicators animal
00:00:35 biomarkers incubator the live cell monitor technology that combines a custom designed and developed live cell attenuated total reflectance or ATR cell and wellestablished forier transform infrared or ftir spectroscopy technology leading to live cell ATR FTI spectroscopy that will transform the areas of biology toxicology Material Science
00:01:04 environmental science medicine and pharmacology there are three easy steps in live cell spectroscopy one grow live cells to full Confluence directly on the ATR substrate with or without a functionalization layer on the surface two introduce stimuli for example growth agent or tumor promoter or nanop particles into the cell medium
00:01:32 inside the incubator three connect to an ftir and collect ATR ft data measurements to account for changing live cell Dynamics for example in an experiment conducted at pnnl a stimuli a basic fibr blast growth factor or bfgf a growth agent tumor promoter was added to endothelial model live cells in the incubator's live cell environment and cellular responses
00:02:03 were evaluated by collecting and reviewing the series of ftir Spectra collected as a function of time researchers immediately can begin to analyze and understand how the stimuli produce observable changes chemical signatures or biomarkers in live cell structures starting from the actual dose time through the experiment's fruition for Rapid screening the same approach
00:02:29 can be extended to multiple ATR cells with suitable custom designed Optics multiple ATR cells can be well integrated into a single technology that can be commercially used for Rapid screening cost effectively in summary incubator the live cell monitor is commercially licensed and available now for use some of its advantages include it enables near realtime live cell
00:02:58 spectroscopy reagents are not require required non-destructive no prior knowledge is required validation of models and data sets standardization saving money time and lives [Music]