Hyam L. Leffert, a professor of Pharmacology, and Sungho Jin, a professor of Materials and Aerospace Engineering, for a project titled, "Highly functional hepatocytes on TiO2 nanotube chips: New efficient modules for pharmaceutical screening of drug toxicity and drug metabolism." The basic technology utilizes newly developed nanotech chips constructed of Titanium and Titanium dioxide. The biocompatible surfaces of the chips comprise bonded titanium dioxide nanotubes, the geometry of which facilitates robust and long-term culture of highly functional, normal (i.e. primary) mouse and human hepatocytes.
The technology can be used as a stand-alone chip, carrying human hepatocytes cultured in appropriately defined biological fluid and incubator systems, to be used for efficient pharmaceutical in vitro screening of drug toxicity and drug metabolism. Further monochip development into modular arrays, composed of hundreds to housands of monochips, are envisioned for pharmaceutical use to provide high throughput robotic screening, as well as for eventual bioartificial liver devices for the benefit of patients with liver diseases.
Yu-Tsueng Liu, a researcher at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, and Sadik Esener, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for a project titled, "A comprehensive human papilloma virus (HPV) typing assay for early screening of cervical cancer."
Cervical cancer is almost always caused by infections of the human papilloma virus (HPV). An estimated 50 to 80 percent of the pre-cancerous lesions can be detected by Pap test, which is c
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Contact: Rex Graham
ragraham@ucsd.edu
858-822-3075
University of California - San Diego
17-May-2007