[extropy-chat] On the verge of automated cell-sorting

Jeff Davis jrd1415 at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 22 20:42:04 UTC 2005


--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>
wrote: 
>       ... the flow cytometry and cell sorting
> (FACS) system you describe can only dilleanate cells
> by levels of specific proteins on their membranes.
> The
> most powerful of these cannot distinguish between
> more
> than 5 proteins at the same time and the cells have
> to
> be run thorugh a big bulky machine to make it
> happen.
>      The system described by the article is
> different
> because the cells can be directly chosen off of a
> microscope slide in real-time by someone looking
> through a microscope who is looking at the
> morphology
> of the cell and not proteins on the cell surface.
> Trust me, every microbiologist will want one of
> these
> puppies. 
> 

My own layman's thoughts on the utility of this new
tech tend toward the sorting, for subsequent
culturing/amplification, of (1)all manner of adult
stem cells, and (2)sorting (the few?) normal T-cell
precursor cells in cases of lymphoma (where it is my
impression that a massive out-of-balance proliferation
of (immature?) T-cells eventually "clogs"(?) the blood
and kills the afflicted individual.)  In one lymphoma
"therapy", the deadly runaway defective T-cell
overproduction is terminated by destroying the bone
marrow.  Unfortunately, this leaves the patient with
no immune system, a giant walking free lunch for every
nearby microorganism.  With effective high throughput
cell sorting perhaps an adequate volume of bone marrow
could be cleared of the bad bits and then used for an
autologous transplant to reestablish a healty bone
marrow population.

Whatever the actual utility turns out to be, I am, as
always a dynamically optimistic techno-überzealot.

Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles




		
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