The Forbes Research Group at the University of Massachusetts has begun researching new ways to treat cancer with help from a $330,000 grant that was awarded to them by the National Institute of Health last year.
The group has worked to find cancer treatments that will specifically target tumors that chemotherapy often fails to subdue.
The grant, called 'Microelectrode oxygenation control of tumor necrosis,' will fund collaborations between the department of chemical engineering at UMass, headed by Assistant Professor Neil Forbes, and the department of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan under the leadership of Michel Maharbiz.
Forbes has created a device called a 'Cylindroid' which takes a small sphere of cells and compresses them into a cylindrical shape while surrounding them with a liquid that mimics the environment that live cells exist in. The Cylindroid gives Forbes and his team a visual of cells in the center of the cylinder dying due to lack of oxygen. The cylinder of colon cancer cells, which resembles the structure of a tumor, allows researchers to see the different stages of life each cell is in.
Within the tumor are three main types of cells. The cells closest to arteries and veins, called proliferating cells, have immediate access to the bloodstream, and therefore to oxygen, causing the cells to grow rapidly. The cells in the middle are called quiescent cells; they grow more slowly because less oxygen reaches them. The cells in the center are called necrosis, or dead cells, as no oxygen can get to them. "In a tumor," says Forbes, "happy cells grow really fast [whereas] far away cells, due to the lack of diffusion, die."
Maharbiz's research group has made an electrode device that enables the user to control the way and amounts of oxygen being emitted by releasing a current into water.
"Michel has figured out a device that delivers microns; as a visual, a human hair is 100 microns thick," said Forbes. With this chip, oxygen can be shot into the cylinder of cells wherever the researcher wishes. Patterns of oxygen can thus be sent into the center of the cells, or throughout the cylinder in an intermittent pattern of lines, reaching areas of quiescent cells that don't normally receive such high amounts of the gas.
"[There's] a lot of grant money to put these two technologies together," says Forbes, "[we are] putting the two technologies together to research treatments of cancer."
By using the two inventions together, separated by a polymer made of natural and synthetic compounds and allows the diffusion of oxygen, the team will attempt to answer many unknown questions about the treatment of cancer tumors. "We want to know whether the lack of oxygen causes necrosis," says Forbes, "and whether certain genes, such as HIF++, allows cells to live in low oxygen environments better."
The grant money will allow the team to try a wide range of experiments on cancer cells; tests will be done involving oxygen levels, oxygen placement, nutrient levels and placement and gene therapy.
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