I-Corps: Development of a wicking fiber cytometer for cell analysis applications

I-Corps：开发用于细胞分析应用的芯吸纤维细胞仪

• 批准号: 2041689
• 负责人: Karen Burg
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-01 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2041689&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Development; wicking; fiber; cytometer

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to explore applications of a device to predict cellular movement and behaviors in a laboratory. One application is simple and rapid assessment of the aggressive state of cancer in a clinical setting to inform treatment decisions. This could also be used in research to study cells in order to design new treatments. This I-Corps project is based on the development of wicking fibers for use in separating cells by physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. The fibers are currently used in non-biomedical application, e.g., they may be found in athletic apparel and facial tissue. These fibers are designed with certain features such as the ability to move liquids away from the body. It also has been found that the ability of the fibers to move liquid is an advantage in biomedical applications, both in understanding cell behaviors and in helping assess the current state of a disease. For instance, if fibers are placed vertically in a liquid containing normal and cancerous cells, the tumor cells will move quickly up the fibers, while the normal cells will remain at the bottom. More aggressive cancer cells travel up the fibers more rapidly than less aggressive cells. This rapid differentiation allows us to better understand why cells behave in certain ways and to harness that information to create improved biomedical solutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是探索设备在实验室中预测细胞运动和行为的应用。一种应用是在临床环境中简单快速地评估癌症的侵袭状态，以告知治疗决策。 这也可以用于研究细胞以设计新的治疗方法。该 I-Corps 项目基于芯吸纤维的开发，用于根据物理、化学和生物特性分离细胞。这些纤维目前用于非生物医学应用，例如，它们可能出现在运动服装和面巾纸中。这些纤维被设计成具有某些特性，例如能够将液体移出身体。研究还发现，纤维移动液体的能力在生物医学应用中具有优势，无论是在理解细胞行为还是帮助评估疾病的当前状态方面。例如，如果将纤维垂直放置在含有正常细胞和癌细胞的液体中，肿瘤细胞将快速沿纤维向上移动，而正常细胞将保留在底部。侵袭性更强的癌细胞比较侵袭性较小的细胞沿纤维移动得更快。这种快速分化使我们能够更好地理解细胞为何以某些方式表现，并利用这些信息来创建改进的生物医学解决方案。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。