Lifetime On Chip

chewan · Post time 17-1-2010 06:53 PM

Have you ever wondered what happened to worms as they get old? Nowit is possible to observe them over their entire life thanks to amicrofluidic device developed by US scientists. The device, made by George Whitesides and colleagues at Harvard University, Cambridge, houses individual worms (Caenorhabditis elegans)in an array of chambers and a network of microfluidic channels todeliver food and remove waste. Confinement in the chamber ensures thatthe worms do not move from the field of view without interrupting theirnormal swimming motions. Also the identities of the worms are keptallowing repeated measurements of behavioural and physiological traitsof each individual.

The properties of Caenorhabditis elegansmake it useful for studying a wide variety of diseases and biologicalprocesses, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease andageing. Although there are a number of microfluidic tools used to studyworms, this is the first device that can be used to observe individualworms over their entire life.

Each worm can be observed over their entire life

Whitesidesdemonstrated the new technology by tracking age-related changes in bodysize and swimming behaviour for individual worms over their entireadult life. 'Our device is designed to help worm biologists to carryout controlled experiments using statistically large numbers of worms,'says Whitesides. This will allow researches to study the extentvariation exist in populations of genetically identical worms, he adds.

HangLu, an expert in microfluidic technologies at Georgia Institute ofTechnology, Atlanta, US, remarks 'this is a simple and neat device toculture Caenorhabditis elegans for days and observe their locomotions, something that biologists that study ageing have long wanted.'

penciptaan mungkin nmpak simple, tp pengunaan ada potensi sgt besar, plus byk jugak penyakit yg berpunca dr cacing

saintis malaysia bila lagi :pompom: