Low Voltage Electroporation
April 9, 2013 | Terry Sharrer
Gene therapy mainly relies on viral vectors to introduce DNR or RNA into target cells. Viruses have the advantage of working upon great numbers of cells, but worries remain about safety issues. Electroporation has long been used for nucleic acid transfer, but this hasn’t been very efficient for masses of cells and high voltage electroporation kills many cells in the process. Spanish bioengineers, however, have developed low voltage electroporation (under 20 volts, compared with hundred or thousands of volts in former methods) using tiny (1 centimeter in diameter) printed circuit boards. Besides the safety advantage this offers for transforming stem cells, the new device costs about one one-hundredth that of current technology. MORE