Available Technology
Cell Motility Assay with Spatial and Temporal Control
Technology:
Alteration of Surface Affinities for control of cell-substrate interactions
Markets Addressed
This technique has the capacity to control a cell-substrate interaction both spatially and temporally. When integrated into a biological screening assay, the technology can evaluate agents that inhibit or promote cell motility. Cell motility is a fundamental process involved in a broad range of biological activities including angiogenesis, inflammation, tissue morphogenesis, cancer, and wound healing. Cell motility assays are then useful and often fundamental in the development of drugs against a variety of conditions, including; cancer, cardiovascular disease, and inflammation.; ;
Technology has applications in:
• Cell and protein patterning on surfaces
• Functionalized surfaces
• Micro fluidics
• Drug discovery
Innovations and Advantages
This technology is a method for using a pulse of current in an electrochemical microdevice to change a surface from one that resists the adsorption of proteins and cells to one that promotes that adsorption. This invention allows the preparation of surfaces that adsorb/bind eucaryotic cells and presents them in patterns, and then the controlled release of these cells from those patterns. The movement of the cells across the surface following the current pulse provides the basis for biochemical assays based on cell motility; these assays are useful for determining a wide variety of biological functions: for example, they can be used in examining inhibitors of assembly and disassembly of the actin cytoskeleton, of energy metabolism, and of certain signaling pathways. The technique can be relatively simple experimentally and made to be easily implemented in any biological laboratory.
Additional Information
Intellectual Property Status: Issued U.S. patent nos.: 7,659,053
Intellectual Property: US Utility Patent: 7,659,053.
Methods of alteration of surface affinities using non-chemical force
Publication:
Electrochemical Desorption of Self-Assembled Monolayers Non-Invasively Releases Patterned Cells from Geometrical Confinements. X. Jiang, R. Ferrigno, M. Mrksich and G. M. Whitesides, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2003, 125(9), 2366-2367. Article is available here.
Website: The Whitesides Research Group found here.
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Inventor(s):
Ferrigno, Rosaria
Jiang, Xingyu
Whitesides, George M.
Categories:
For further information, please contact:
Sam Liss, Director of Business Development
(617) 495-4371
Reference Harvard Case #2126