Because the light has to squeeze through such a tiny object, a process Gourley calls "nano-squeezing," the lasing spectra are dramatically altered, which makes cell identification and detection easier.
UNM's Keep, who is also chief executive officer of the Albuquerque-based Swedish-American company Maas BiolAB, has contributed the neuroprotective agent Cyclosporin A, for which his company holds a patent. According to Keep, Cyclosporin A does "waterproof" the mitochondria, but not well enough. The idea here is to use the Sandia biolaser to establish a benchmark for performance against which to measure other, potentially even more effective drugs.
"Cyclosporin protects mitochondria better than anything else known, but it is not a perfect drug," says Keep. "It has side effects, like immunosuppression. Unrelated drugs may have a similar protective effect on mitochondria. Gourley's device will lead to a rapid screening device for hundreds of cyclosporin derivatives or even of chemical compounds never tested before."
While testing with conventional methods would take many people and many batches of mitochondria, says Keep, the nanolaser requires only tiny amounts of mitochondria and drug to test.
"With one tube on the left flowing in a number of mitochondria per second, and microliters of different drugs in different packets flowing in to join them on the right, we could rapidly run through hundreds of different compounds. Each mitochondrion scanned through the analyzer would show if there were a change in its lasing characteristics. That would determine the effectiveness of chemical compounds and identify new and even better neuroprotectants."
Currently, he says, only a few materials can be tested each day.
Mitochondria with and without neuroprotectant would have calcium ions added to the mix to see the effect of each potential drug.
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Contact: Neal Singer
nsinger@sandia.gov
505-845-7078
DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
23-Sep-2003