Saving Lives Goal of New tissue Analysis Method

Contact: Patrick Dillon, Physiology
(517) 355-6475, Ext. 1227

or

Tom Oswald, Media Communications
(517) 355-2281

SAVING LIVES GOAL OF NEW TISSUE ANALYSIS METHOD

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University researchers have come up with a new method for assessing the chemical health of tissue which could lead to more effective cancer treatments and earlier diagnoses of a number of diseases.

Employing a new use for existing technology - specifically, a device known as a capillary electrophoresis (CE) -- the MSU scientists have come up with a way of analyzing tissue that is quicker, more accurate and requires much smaller samples than previously needed.

By more accurately assessing the health of a tissue, scientists will be able to determine any number of things, including the effectiveness of certain cancer treatments or determining if someone is in the early stages of a disease such as diabetes.

The work of Patrick Dillon, an MSU associate professor of physiology, and doctoral student Patrick Sears, is published in the March issue of the American Journal of Physiology.

"Through the use of this technology, we can measure the chemical health of individual tissue where size is no longer an issue," Dillon said. "With the CE, we need only nano-liters of material to do any measurements."

In the past, many tissue analyses could not be done because such a large sample was needed that the cure was sometimes worse than the illness. In addition, patients would sometimes refuse to have an analysis done for fear of the procedure.

"If, for example, a biopsy has to be done - we want to see what the metabolic condition of your tissue is - we can now use such a small sample that it won't cause any large damage," Dillon said. "There is no sample so small that could be taken that we couldn't do a complete analysis of more than 30 chemicals in about 40 minutes."

The technology also offers health care providers the opportunity to get a picture of what healthy tissue looks like - something from which they can measure.

"With this we're able to have obtain a profile. We now know, for example, what healthy bladder tissue looks like," he said. "So if one came along that didn't look very good we would know right away."

In addition to its value in tissue analysis, the CE also will be a valuable tool in medical research. Among other things, Dillon said, it will dramatically reduce the numbers of animals used in research.

"With this, we can take minute samples from the same animal," he said. "This will cut costs, reduce variability and reduce the numbers of animals we use."

For years, the capillary electrophoretic was an essential tool for chemists, but its use among biologists was "almost nil," said Dillon. By pushing tissue samples through a hair-thin glass tube and zapping it with an electrical charge, the CE is able to measure metabolites from the tissues.

These metabolites, depending on what they are and how many there are, provide scientists with a health analysis of the tissue.

"This allows us to do a test to see how healthy your cells are," Dillon said. "If your tissues are getting sick, it's going to start showing up in changes in various metabolite levels."

(NOTE: For a copy of the paper, please contact Dillon at [517] 355-6575, Ext. 1227, or Tom Oswald, MSU Media Communications, 355-2281.)