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Topic Name: Molecular devices’ remarkably precise scans of cellular activity could revolutionize medicine
Category: Biomedical
Research persons: Benenson ,Weiss,undergraduate Keller Rinaudo, Leonidas Bleris
Location: B105, Bauer Bld, 7 Divinity Ave Cambridge MA 02138, United States
Details
Researchers at Harvard and Princeton
universities have taken a crucial step toward building biological computers,
tiny implantable devices that can monitor the activities and characteristics of
human cells. The information provided by these “molecular doctors,”
constructed entirely of DNA, RNA, and proteins, could eventually revolutionize
medicine by directing therapies only to diseased cells or tissues.The results
will be published this week in the journal Nature Biotechnology.“Each human
cell already has all of the tools required to build these biocomputers on its
own,” says Harvard’s Yaakov “Kobi” Benenson, a Bauer Fellow in the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Center for Systems Biology. “All that must be
provided is a genetic blueprint of the machine and our own biology will do the
rest. Your cells will literally build these biocomputers for you.”
Evaluating Boolean logic equations
inside cells, these molecular automata will detect anything from the presence of
a mutated gene to the activity of genes within the cell. The biocomputers’
“input” is RNA, proteins and chemicals found in the cytoplasm; “output”
molecules indicating the presence of the telltale signals are easily discernable
with basic laboratory equipment.
“Currently, we have no tools for
reading cellular signals,” Benenson says. “These biocomputers can translate
complex cellular signatures, such as activities of multiple genes, into a
readily observed output. They can even be programmed to automatically translate
that output into a concrete action, meaning they could either be used to label a
cell for a clinician to treat or they could trigger therapeutic action
themselves.”
Benenson and his colleagues demonstrate
in their Nature Biotechnology paper that biocomputers can work in human kidney
cells in a culture. Research into the system’s ability to monitor and interact
with intracellular cues such as mutations and abnormal gene levels is still in
progress.
Benenson and colleagues, including Ron
Weiss, associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, have also
developed a conceptual framework by which various phenotypes could be
represented logically.
A bio-computer’s calculations, while
mathematically simple, could allow researchers to build biosensors or medicine
delivery systems capable of singling out very specific types or groups of cells
in the human body. Molecular automata could allow doctors to specifically target
only cancerous or diseased cells via a sophisticated integration of
intracellular disease signals, leaving healthy cells completely unaffected.
Benenson and Weiss worked in
collaboration with undergraduate Keller Rinaudo, postdoctoral researcher
Leonidas Bleris, and summer intern Rohan Maddamsetti, all at Harvard, and with
Sairam Subramanian, a graduate student at Princeton.
About Researchers:
Yaakov
(Kobi) Benenson,
principal
investigator
PhD
in Computer Science and Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute, Israel
MSc
in Biochemistry, Technion, Israel
Email:
kbenenson at cgr.harvard.edu
B105,
Bauer Bld, 7 Divinity Ave Cambridge MA 02138 USA ,Phone:
617-384-7791;
Ron Weiss
B-312, E-Quad
Department
of Electrical Engineering
Princeton
University
Princeton, NJ 08544-5263
rweiss@princeton.edu
Tel: (609) 258-1174
Fax: (609) 258-2931
Leonidas Bleris
Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer
Engineering from Lehigh University in 2006, where he also earned a M.S. with a
focus in Control Theory. He received a Diploma in Electrical and Computer
Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Bleris was
awarded the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship
from the National Academy of Science (NAS), and served with the Board of
Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications in the Division of Engineering and
Physical Sciences. He was awarded best presentation in session awards (American
Control Conference 2004 and 2005), was selected as an NSF sponsored participant
of the Pan-American Study Institute on Process Systems Engineer, and he is a
member of Phi Beta Delta International Honor Society for International scholars.
Bleris joined the Harvard's Bauer Center for Genomics Research as a Postdoctoral
Fellow in April 2006
Email-leb3@lehigh.edu
Funded:
Their research is supported by Harvard
University and a center grant from the National Institute of General Medical
Sciences.
In The Images:
1. Benenson
2.This work
is a crucial step towards building biological computers, tiny implantable
devices that can monitor the activities and characteristics of human cells.
Courtesy Kobi Benenson
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