Jellyfish

Most microfluidics devices rely on antibodies to capture targeted proteins in a sample, but they are largely unable to bind large tumor cells circulating through the blood stream. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, however, are working on a microfluidics device that mimics the way jelly fish snatch food from seawater.  This device has long strands of repeating DNA sequences that dangle down and attach to specific proteins on cancer cells in a blood sample flow.  The development team also believes the same design might be able to capture fetal cells in the mother’s blood.  MORE

Image Credit: Brigham and Women’s Hospital