Life is just a theory

How can you observe a tumor as it develops? Sure, you could grow one in a petri dish. But it’s a pretty lame mad scientist who falls back on glassware. It’s much more fun if you can observe a tumor in a live animal…by installing a window in its belly.

Dutch researchers surgically implanted glass panes into mice’s abdomens, creating rodents with full mobility—and insides on full display. Then the mouse livers were infected with colorectal tumor cells that produced fluorescent proteins, making them easy to image. The scientists watched through the abdominal windows as the cells developed into tumors and spread.

By showing cancer in action, the windows revealed the behavior of individual cells. We used to think that cells only moved around during the beginning of the metastasis process, but it turns out that they keep on wiggling even after establishing a tumor in a new site. Their motion may help cancer cells migrate through the body. The work is published in Science Translational Medicine.

And the experiment also proves that whoever decided “the eyes are the windows to the soul” clearly hadn’t seen a mouse with an abdominal peep-hole.

Video courtesy of Science Translational Medicine / AAAS

expose-the-light:

Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells

A Microscopic View of Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells

HeLa cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture and are invaluable to medical researchers

In the image:

1. A HeLa cancer cell dividing.

2. The metaphase stage of a human HeLa cell division.

3. Subspecies of HeLa cells have evolved in labs and some feel that the cell line is no longer human, but a new microbial life form. These nuclei are shown in green the cytoplasm is red and structures within the cytoplasm are blue. internal darker zones are the nucleoli.

4. The prophase stage of mitosis in the division of these human HeLa cells.

5. This fluorescence micrograph of a HeLa cell shows the cytoskeletal micro filaments in red and nuclei stain with Hoechst in blue.

jtotheizzoe:

I, DNA NANOBOT

When you think of powerful weapons to fight cancer, origami is not your first thing you think of. But we’re not talking about paper cranes. We are talking about folding DNA to deliver cancer drugs right where they’re needed.

Remember DNA origami from last year? It’s not just whimsical shapes and nanometer-scale smiley faces. Biophysicists from Harvard have designed carefully-folded DNA barrels that can bind payloads on the inside (like drugs) and attach to cancer cell-specific targeting molecules (called aptamers) on the outside.

The nano bots then target their specific cancer type, springing open to deliver their killer drug cargo. It’s a “smart drug” of sorts. By designing different aptamer molecules to direct the bots to various targets, cancer drugs can be delivered very specifically, without many of the side effects of general chemotherapy.

(via Nature News, video and image from Wyss Institute)

This is such an interesting idea for cancer treatment! And of course, it’s also incredibly cool!