Whole Animal Assays Use Lab-On-A-Chip at MIT
MIT researchers expand genetic screening with new diagnostic technologies
Make way for what is being called “whole animal assays.” This new approach utilizes a lab on a chip to allow researchers to perform whole animal screening at sub-cellular resolutions in what is described as a “high throughput” manner. The new diagnostic technology was developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MIT researchers developed this unique whole animal assay testing chip using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The resulting lab-on-a-chip makes it easier to conduct genetic research into neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The traditional method of manipulating C. elegans involves using small glass and metal picks and anesthetizing the animals before submitting them for high-resolution imaging, according to Mehmet Fatih Yanik, an Assistant Professor at MIT, and Christopher Rohde, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Yanik and Rohde wrote about their research in a report published in Biomedical Optics & Medical Imaging earlier this year. Yanik runs the BioPhotonics, BioScreening and NanoManipulation Group lab at MIT. (more…)
