Newswise By the time someone realizes they damaged a ligament, tendon or cartilage from too much exercise or other types of physical activity, its too late. The tissue is stretched and torn and the person is writhing in pain. But a team of researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering professors Jeffrey Weiss and Michael Yu has discovered that damage to collagen, the main building block of all human tissue, can occur much earlier at a molecular level from too much physical stress, alerting doctors and scientists that a patient is on the path to major tissue damage and pain. This could be especially helpful for some who want to know earlier if they are developing diseases such as arthritis or for athletes who want to know if repeated stress on their bodies is taking a toll. The scientific value of this is high because collagen is everywhere, Yu says. When we are talking about this mechanical damage, were talking about cartilage and tendons and even heart valves that move all the time. There are so many tissues which involve collagen that can go bad mechanically. This issue is important for understanding many injuries and diseases. The teams research, funded … Continue reading →

Researchers at UCLA have developed an improved method to detect the presence of DNA biomarkers of disease that is compatible with use outside of a hospital or lab setting. The new technique leverages the sensors and optics of cellphones to read light produced by a new detector dye mixture that reports the presence of DNA molecules with a signal that is more than 10-times brighter. Nucleic acids, such as DNA or RNA, are used in tests for infectious diseases, genetic disorders, cancer mutations that can be targeted by specific drugs, and fetal abnormality tests. The samples used in standard diagnostic tests typically contain only tiny amounts of a diseases related nucleic acids. To assist optical detection, clinicians amplify the number of nucleic acids making them easier to find with the fluorescent dyes. Both the amplification and the optical detection steps have in the past required costly and bulky equipment, largely limiting their use to laboratories. In a studypublished onlinein the journal ACS Nano, researchers from three UCLA entities the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the California NanoSystems Institute, and the David Geffen School of Medicine showed how to take detection out of the lab and for a … Continue reading →

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from the University of California Los Angeles showed that they could detect the presence of DNA molecules using a new dye mixture and the sensors and optics of cellphones. The new system reads light created by the detector dye mixture, with a 10-times brighter signal, at a fraction of the cost of traditional laboratory equipment. Typical diagnostic tests, such as ones for infectious diseases and genetic disorders, rely on amplifying the number of disease related nucleic acids like DNA or RNA with fluorescent dyes. However, intercalator dyes, as they are called, which are small changes in light emitted from molecules that associate with DNA, are too subtle and unstable for regular cellphone camera sensors. To address the problem, researchers including Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellors Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering, and Dino Di Carlo, professor of bioengineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering, found that by including a chemical additive they could stabilize the intercalator dyes and significantly increase the fluorescent signal above the background light level. This made it possible to incorporate the test with inexpensive cellphone based detection methods. The new system was used in a process called loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), with DNA from … Continue reading →