Bio Focus: Small tissue reprogramming device designed to heal damaged tissues

Described recently in Nature Nanotechnology (doi:10.1038/NNANO.2017.134), TNT was used to reprogram skin cells in mice to become vascular (blood vessel) cells in badly injured legs that lacked blood flow, ultimately saving the legs within a short time. A decade ago, researchers from Japan and the Un...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MRS bulletin 2017-10, Vol.42 (10), p.695-696
Main Author: Bennington-Castro, Joseph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied and Technical Physics
Brain
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Energy Materials
Fibroblasts
Genetic engineering
Materials Engineering
Materials News
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
News & Analysis
Permeability
Researchers
Silicon nitride
Silicon wafers
Skin
Stem cells
Studies
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Summary:Described recently in Nature Nanotechnology (doi:10.1038/NNANO.2017.134), TNT was used to reprogram skin cells in mice to become vascular (blood vessel) cells in badly injured legs that lacked blood flow, ultimately saving the legs within a short time. A decade ago, researchers from Japan and the United States showed that they could use gene-carrying viruses to transform adult skin cells into so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells)--cells resembling embryonic stem cells that can then develop into other types of cells. When an intense, focused electric field is applied through the arrayed nanochannels, tissue cell membranes in contact with the device are benignly nanoporated (exposed to nanosecond electric pulses that reversibly increase membrane permeability) and reprogramming factors are electrophoretically driven into the cells.
ISSN:0883-7694
1938-1425
DOI:10.1557/mrs.2017.218