Innovation - One Step at a Time
Guru Singh
on
January 17, 2017
Innovation is often evolutionary by nature. Similar to how a small plant can grow and branch out with the right nutrition, innovation blooms as it’s fed new ideas, resulting in massive breakthroughs that open up new doors to unexpected opportunities. My favorite example of this form of evolutionary progression would be the incremental advances in Recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology over the past few decades. This technique has yielded some of the most valuable products in history, from synthetic human insulin and interferon drugs to genetically-modified food products.
At scientist.com our goal is to highlight all evolving high-impact innovations and help researchers to adopt them into their day-to-day research. This month’s installment of our Top 8 Innovations picks includes a range of research tools and technologies. From the next generation in vivo discovery platforms, like Digital Vivarium® Platform and C. elegans in a kit, to tools that facilitate 3D cell culturing such as Nanopatterned Cultureware and VitroGel 3D Hydrogel System.
1. Digital Vivarium® Platform - Vium
Monitor and record a range of animal metrics by applying sensors and monitoring technology to animal cages.
2. PEPperCHIP® Peptide Microarray Platform - PEPperPRINT
Use peptide laser-printing technology to print layers of amino acid complexes on a coated glass slide.
3. ZipChip - 908 Devices
Use a microfluidic chip with capillary electrophoresis (CE) and electrospray ionization (ESI) to prepare, separate, and electrospray biological samples directly into a mass spectrometer.
4. REDIMODEL System - C. elegans Model in a Kit - Knudra Transgenics
Use a transgenic C. elegans larva humanized with disease-related genes in a liquid format for the fast and easy assessment of transgene activity.
5. VitroGel 3D Hydrogel System - TheWell Bioscience
Use a hydrogel (matrix) to grow cells as 3D colonies over time, or mix the matrix with cells/drugs in medium and inject into an animal for in vivo studies.
6. Spedia-NMR™ Service - Spinnovation
Measure over 50 components concurrently throughout the cell culturing process, such as feed components (e.g., amino acids, glucose), contaminants, and metabolites.
7. Substrate-Free Autobioluminescent Cell Line Development - Applied StemCell
Modify cell lines to express an autobioluminescent reporter for in vitro and in vivo imaging.
8. Nanopatterned Cultureware - Nanosurface Biomedical
Use nanopatterned dishes, featuring topographical likeness to the extracellular matrix, to provide in vivo-like maturation and alignment of cells.
Let’s keep the conversation going — use hashtag #sparkofinnovation to join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook!