Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

New microfluidic device offers means for studying electric field cancer therapy

July 7, 2016 By Abigail Esposito

The device, about the size of a U.S. dollar coin, is designed to help scientists narrow in on safe ranges of electric fields to noninvasively treat breast, lung and other forms of cancer.

The device, about the size of a U.S. dollar coin, is designed to help scientists narrow in on safe ranges of electric fields to noninvasively treat breast, lung and other forms of cancer.

Researchers at MIT’s research center in Singapore have developed a new microfluidic device that tests the effects of electric fields on cancer cells. They observed that a range of low-intensity, middle-frequency electric fields effectively stopped breast and lung cancer cells from growing and spreading, while having no adverse effect on neighboring healthy cells.

The device, about the size of a U.S. dollar coin, is designed to help scientists narrow in on safe ranges of electric fields to noninvasively treat breast, lung and other forms of cancer. The results are published online in Scientific Reports.

The paper’s co-authors include Roger Kamm, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as research scientists Andrea Pavesi and Giulia Adriani, postdoc Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, and student Andy Tay of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. Senior research officer Wei Hseun Yeap and associate professor Siew Cheng Wong of the Singapore Immunology Network also contributed to the report.

“We hope this device will increase interest by researchers who are exploring the effect of electric fields on different types of cancer,” Adriani said. “In our study, we noticed the effect was limited to the cancer cell at the tested frequencies and intensities, but we really need to explore other cells and parameters.”

An electric recipe
For the past decade, scientists have been experimenting with the use of electric fields to treat malignant cells, in an alternative cancer treatment called tumor treating field (TTF). The therapy stems from the interaction among key cellular structures in tumors and an external electric field.

In general, an electric field is a field of forces that act on objects that have an electric charge. An electric field can also influence the alignment of polar molecules in tumor cells, such as microtubules.

Normally, these molecules are crucial for cell division, which, when it goes into overdrive, leads to tumor growth. When microtubules line up end to end to form a mitotic spindle, the cell’s genetic material attaches to the spindle fibers, pulling and splitting the cell into two cells.

In the past, scientists have observed that these charged molecules respond to a low-frequency electric field, between 100 and 300 kilohertz and with an intensity as strong as the field strength of a mixer or toaster. Instead of forming mitotic spindles, the microtubule alignment is disrupted in such a way that it prevents cell division and tumor growth.

“Scientists have been trying to figure out a lot of different recipes to try to stimulate the cell with an electric field,” Pavesi said. “By tweaking the intensity and frequency, you can have an effect only on the cancer cells, leaving the other type of cells unaltered, without destroying them. That’s the key concept.”

A company, Novocure, has since been founded to develop TTF therapies for people with brain and lung cancer. Pavesi, who has been helping to design microfluidic devices with Kamm, came up with the idea for a device to test TTF after watching a TED talk by Novocure’s founder.

“Immediately, I was thinking to myself, ‘This is an easy thing I can replicate in one of my devices,'” Pavesi said.

Gaining time
The researchers fabricated the device from PDMS, a widely used, gel-like polymer, and patterned small channels across the device. They then developed a conductive mixture made from micron-sized silver flakes and PDMS, which they cured, then injected into two channels in the device to form two tiny, separate electrodes.

In the region between the electrodes, they injected hydrogels with breast or lung cancer cells as well as small tumor masses. The researchers also injected healthy human endothelial cells.

The hydrogels created a 3D matrix to mimic the extracellular environment. The team subjected each cell type in the 3D matrix to alternating electric fields at frequencies of 150 or 200 kilohertz, continuously, at an intensity of 1.1 volts per centimeter.

In the absence of an electric field, Pavesi said the cancer cells begin to proliferate and spread within two days. However, he and Adriani observed a significant slowdown in tumor progression after three days of continuous electric field stimulation: Proliferation was markedly reduced, while small masses of lung cancer cells did not disperse indicating an inhibition of their metastatic potential.

What’s more, healthy endothelial cells in the same device were left unaffected. The researchers hypothesize that healthy cells may require different frequencies to be influenced by an electric field, as their size and electrical properties are far different from that of cancer cells.

Adriani hopes the microfluidic device can help scientists test a wide range of electric field intensities and frequencies on other cancer cell types. While TTF therapy has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating brain tumors, that approval process took years to test electric fields, first in vitro, then in animals and in humans. Pavesi said a microfluidic device could speed up that process.

“Maybe by screening TTF to optimize frequency and intensity, you can at least reduce the time it takes for in vivo studies,” Pavesi said. “There may be thousands of variables, but you could first try them in this device. If you find 10 that work, you can go ahead and try those 10 in the animal model.”

“For personalized medicine, you can test if a recipe works for a specific person,” Adriani said. “In three days, you can have an answer. And for many cancer patients who are dying of metastasis, time is everything.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
web.mit.edu

Related Articles Read More >

A portrait of Dr. Kevin Chung, chief medical officer at SeaStar Medical
Device developer SeaStar Medical hires chief medical officer
A portrait of Dr. Philip Adamson
Expect more heart and lung failure years after COVID, Abbott’s heart failure CMO says
A portrait of Stryker executive Siddarth Satish
How Stryker includes users for product design in the digital age
gBETA Medtech accelerator picks its next startups

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 27, 2022
Quick message - No DTW podcast, but plenty else to listen to over this weekend and next week.
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech