June 11, 2010
Cells in the human body live in amazingly complex, three-dimensional environments that are crucial for the cells' proper function. The lung, for example, consists of layers of different kinds of cells that work together to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide between the air and the blood.
The way these cells work together, and the chemicals that they express to communicate with one another, change when they live on a flat, two-dimensional surface.
Given these differences in cell behavior and expression, it's intriguing that the standard for testing new drugs and chemicals are tests that use cells grown in flat-bottomed Petri dishes.
In an effort to more accurately mimic the effect of drugs or toxic chemicals on real living tissue, scientists from Rice University and the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have developed a new laboratory technique that uses magnetic levitation to grow cells in three-dimensional shapes. Compared with cell cultures grown on flat surfaces, these 3-D cell cultures form tissues that more closely resemble those inside the body. The technique has the potential to drastically reduce the cost of developing new drugs, as well as reduce the use of animals when testing the safety of manufactured chemicals. The team's results were published in March 2010 in Nature Nanotechnology.
