A novel technology could aid in the development of more effective cancer treatments or early diagnosis of disease.

Amanda Siegfried reports at Phys.Org,

A UT Dallas physicist has developed a novel technology that not only sheds light on basic cell biology, but also could aid in the development of more effective cancer treatments or early diagnosis of disease.

Dr. Jason Slinker, associate professor of physics, and his colleagues developed an electronic device that uses DNA molecules—the genetic material found in every human cell—and other biochemicals to simulate certain cell activity.
They started with an electronic "chip," studded with strands of DNA, that Slinker designed, and combined it with other proteins and enzymes to mimic features of a cellular environment.

"We can't replicate the entire cell, but our DNA chip-based platform simulates a nucleus, which contains a cell's DNA, along with the nuclear membrane and the cytoplasm with a few cell components added," Slinker said. "We combine these in a way that lets us study complex biochemical processes, including how cells repair DNA that has been damaged."

It's well-known that the biochemistry of cancer cells or other diseased cells differs from that of healthy cells, and that those differences can affect the way cells respond to drugs. For example, the concentrations of various proteins and enzymes can vary widely between cancer and normal cells. Some anti-cancer drugs take advantage of these differences, targeting and killing cancer cells while leaving most normal cells alone. Such drugs often have fewer side effects in patients.

"With our DNA chip technology, we have control over which biological factors we include in our simulated cell," Slinker said. "We can change the composition to compare the differences in key biochemical reactions in a healthy cell and a cancer cell, for example. We also can test the effects of various drugs on these biochemical pathways, with multiple tests on the same chip. We think this could be an important tool to develop more effective treatments for patients."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-08-dna-chip-big-possibilities-cell.html#jCp