October 4, 2001
Center’s goal to view the ‘ultrasmall’
A new NIH-supported center housed on the UW campus will develop modular microscale instrumentation systems for the detection and analysis of how, when, and why very small populations of living cells interact with each other and their environment. This will allow scientists to relate specific genes to specific cellular processes.
According to center co-directors Deirdre Meldrum, and Mary Lidstrom, these microsystems will be developed by integrating state-of-the-art manufacturing methods with many key manufacturing technologies, drawing directly from those used to manufacture integrated circuits (computer chips).
“The ultimate goal of the center’s research,” says Lidstrom, “will be the development of microsystems for the sustenance of a single live cell with real time detection of its environment.” She says the team hopes to map uncharted territory and provide a view into the world of the “ultrasmall” that has not before been seen.
A persistent problem in biology, Lidstrom and Meldrum say, is that cells are analyzed in large populations, so that results are averaged over the number of cells present in a sample. This limits the precision of the information and what can be determined about how individual cells actually work, alone and in groups of similar and dissimilar cell types.
“The microsystems designed by the center team will be modular, with the ability to integrate multiple measurements of biological activity in real time,” Meldrum says. “This broad and flexible approach will enable us to address the demanding research questions at the single cell level.”
Center microsystem designs will take advantage of recent developments in manufacturing processes for microscale biological microsystems, along with major advances in sensor technology which enable the detection of minute changes in cellular properties. Individual integrated microsystems will be designed to answer specific biological questions. Key areas of research include:
- Metabolism – how the whole cell works and uses energy in real time;
- Infection – how a cell becomes infected with HIV or Salmonella, the first two infectious agents being studied;
- Rare proteins – these proteins “trigger” cell activity, telling it, for example, when it has grown enough. Trigger proteins are important for understanding diseases such as cancer; and
- Cancer biology – developing better, cheaper and simpler techniques for rapid diagnosis of certain forms of cancer.
In all, 10 working groups will be created, with scientists from microbiology, chemistry, nanotechnology, electrical engineering, bioengineering, the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry, laboratory medicine, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“Another major goal of the center is to train students, both in the sciences and engineering, for future work on genomic systems,” Lidstrom says. “This means biological scientists and chemists need to acquire knowledge about engineering capabilities and engineers and chemists need to understand living systems.” The center will provide hands-on training for the researchers.
Ultimately, the center research team envisions the development of a modular biologically integrated microsystem kit that can be mass-produced and made available to research laboratories, hospitals, and medical center researchers. “This kit will give researchers a window into a new world at the single- cell level and provide an informational quantum leap beyond our current capabilities,” Meldrum says. “This leap could be as significant as that provided by the wide availability of the optical microscope now found in all laboratories worldwide.”
Meldrum’s and Lidstrom’s collaborators include Karl Böhringer, assistant professor of electrical engineering; Lloyd Burgess, research professor of chemistry and member of CPAC, center for process analytical chemistry; Brad Cookson, assistant professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology; Norman Dovichi, professor of chemistry; Mark Holl, research assistant professor of electrical engineering; Brian Marquardt, research scientist, CPAC; John Mittler, research assistant professor of microbiology; James Mullins, professor and chair of microbiology; Brian Reid, M.D., Ph.D. and member of the human biology division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Viola Vogel, associate professor of bioengineering and director of the Center for Nanotechnology; and Denise Wilson, associate professor of electrical engineering.
