Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Soon perhaps, a treatment for cancer epigenetics will be created through
localized solvent physiology changes that reprogram the cancer cell behav-
iors. If the triggering mechanism for cancer cell programming is identified
and reversed, the basis for a cure or reversal of the condition may be pos-
sible. Antiangiogensis agents, epigenetic reprogramming, perhaps even
structured water with appropriate solvents changing the ion transport of
potassium across cell boundaries, may alter sufficiently the folding of pro-
teins during the cancer cell processes. It seems that recent breakthroughs
[29] in the understanding of DNA methylation may provide the epigenetic
key for screening, prevention, and cure of many or all cancers.
7.5.4 Bioimaging Applications
Optical imaging techniques include fluorescence microscopy, Raman imag-
ing, interference imaging, optical coherence tomography, total internal
reflection imaging, multiphoton microscopy, confocal microscopy, and other
developing tools including fluorescence imaging. Fluorescence optical imag-
ing systems include spatial filtering confocal microscopy, spatially resolved
localized spectroscopy, polarization and time resolved fluorescence lifetime
imaging, and fluorescence resonance energy transfer. Applications include
whole body imaging, drug distribution, protein engineering, and identifica-
tion of structural changes in cells, organelles, and tissues [30].
X-ray crystallography provides another means to characterize the atomic
structure of crystalline materials. (Rosalind Franklin used the technique to
produce the famous demonstration that DNA is helical.) This characteriza-
tion includes proteins and nucleic acids. While certain proteins are difficult
to crystallize, nearly 50,000 proteins, nucleic acids, and other biological mac-
romolecules have now been measured with x-ray crystallography [31,32].
7.5.5 Biologically Inspired Computing and Signal Processing
Interesting switching behaviors occur in proteins [33]. There are aspects of
epigenetic programming that may possibly be “switched” with light. If we
express such a protein in a cell, we could control aspects of the protein's
behavior with light. We must determine what controls and expresses the
switching information and what activates it. Some work has been accom-
plished with cutting and pasting proteins to create light-sensitive kinases.
Adding and subtracting amino acid residues modulate the activity [34,35].
As discussed in Chapter 1, this is analogous to the progression of (electrical)
signal processing using combinations of digital logic gates and application-
specific ICs; to optical signal processing using operator transforms, optical
index, and nonlinear bistable functions through acousto- and electro-optic
effects to perform optical computing; to Dennis Bray's “Wetware” biologic
cell logic; and to the biophilosophical, astounding insights of Nick Lane in
the last two chapters of his recent “Life Ascending- the Ten Great Inventions
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