BiO Assay: New Method Uses Free iPod App to Test Drug Toxicity

Rice University student interns have helped Houston-based startup Nano3D Biosciences develop a high-throughput method for in vitro cytotoxicity assays that uses a free iPod app and analytical software for automated data collection and analysis. Nano3D Biosciences's technology grows 3D cell cultures using magnetic levitation. The new assay method, which the company has dubbed the 'BiO Assay,' uses a free iPod app to collect time-lapse images of 3D cell cultures that have been exposed to varying levels of a drug. Those images are then fed through an analytical program that measures each sample and creates time-lapse movies, graphs, and charts of the drug's cytotoxic profile.

Transcript

00:00:06 in nano 3d we use magnetic levitation to create 3d cell culture assays for accurately predicting human response to drugs we basically we have what we call the nanoshadow which is a nanoparticle assembly which includes magnetic nanoparticles that we basically decorate the cells with these nanoparticles it's just it

00:00:25 sticks to the cell electrostatically just sticks to the cell and we apply a magnetic field and the cells levitate so the magnetic field works as invisible scaffold where basically corralled the cells and really promote cell cell interaction very fast and this cell cell interaction is

00:00:43 key for you for us to replicate the three-dimensionality in the in vivo environment rice university students both masters and undergraduate students got involved by basically performing and executing the whole project in terms of coding the ipod app the analytical software as well as doing

00:01:03 the initial pilot studies to validate the assay this system is typical 96 we'll play it with our cells growing in there and we want to watch them move the moving has to do with migration toxicity uh cell cell interactions and all that and so a way to watch a bunch of cells move we could watch it microscopically with

00:01:22 the ipod underneath the system and the app that was designed by will here it takes pictures at intervals that you decide and so you give it the name of the experiment and start your experiment and overnight it's taking pictures at these intervals and with the lens underneath it the

00:01:43 pictures are very nice and clean and after that we can go to the analysis of them we actually talked to apple and apple taught us to we wanted them to to to work with us and they said we can work with you but you need an app and then i asked them um give me a name of a developer i have

00:02:01 developer here so we'll hire them and get the the app done and the guy and actually he's a he was a biologist and i didn't know apple had a biologist he told me he's like don't hire anybody developer go to rice university get a couple students you're gonna get the product exactly the way you want it's going to be better than

00:02:24 than a developer you do it's cool because the ipod reduces the need to go under the microscope and image 96 wells now you can just set the ipod and go