martes, 26 de febrero de 2019

Lab Chat: How to build a better needle

Morning Rounds
Megan Thielking

Lab Chat: How to build a better needle

THE NEEDLE HITS A SWEET SPOT BETWEEN TWO LAYERS OF TISSUE. (RANDAL MCKENZIE)
Scientists have given the needle a 21st-century upgrade to make it easier to deliver drugs to the right spot. Here’s what Jeff Karp of Brigham and Women’s Hospital told me about the proof-of-concept work, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.  
What problem did you set out to solve?  
When you’re inserting a needle into tissue, you can’t see where that needle is going. We set out to design a system that’s as simple as what exists right now, but that could enable better tissue targeting.  
How does your new design work?
When inserting a needle, there's often a thicker tissue encountered before you get to the target. If you're trying to get a needle into a blood vessel, the blood vessel wall is dense, but where you're trying to go is fluid-filled. We designed the needle so fluid can’t come out until you’re no longer in dense tissue. We tested this in a region of the eye with two thin layers of tissue that touch, like a balloon inside of a balloon. We showed that our needle could stop in between without overshooting. 

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