Word: mimicable
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...heard of artificial limbs and artificial hearts but what about artificial immune systems? Add another notch to the test tube: scientists at VaxDesign, a five-year-old biotechnology company based in Orlando, Florida, have created a simulated human immune system, called the Modular Immune In Vitro Construct (MIMIC for short). The dime-sized immune system can predict how humans will respond to new vaccines. The goal? To streamline vaccine research and hasten the eradication of global killers, such as AIDS...
Here's how MIMIC works: Donors fork over a few white blood cells - specifically, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or PBMCs, which include infection-fighting lymphocytes like T and B cells. The blood cells go into specially designed "tissue constructs," which are forged from collagen and endothelial cells and designed to act just like human skin (think a Barbie Dream House for white blood cells). Each construct is hunkered inside an individual well where the blood cells mingle with the faux tissue. As the blood cells get cozy, they flourish, and a teensy, homegrown, fully functioning human immune system is born...
...MIMIC's speed and flexibility makes it particularly attractive to AIDS vaccine researchers. As things stand, it takes months for potential AIDS vaccines to graduate from small-animal trials to monkey studies. "That takes a lot of time, and, with HIV, we don't have a lot of time," says Koff. "We asked the question is there a way to do it faster and take it to humans more quickly...
IAVI's search for an answer led them to Florida. Earlier this month, IAVI chose VaxDesign to receive the first award from its Innovation Fund, which supports potential breakthrough technologies applicable to AIDS vaccine research. Compared to what's available, MIMIC offers a dramatic increase in scale and speed, says Koff. "What's more, by collecting immune cells from different donors, promising vaccine candidates can be tested in diverse populations before they enter humans...
...feel it is a very appropriate thing for Harvard to do.” Faust said Harvard is committed to expanding opportunities in engineering with an aim toward making a school that trains “renaissance engineers,” rather than attempting to mimic the school at the other end of Mass. Ave. “We will never have the size engineering school that MIT does,” Faust said, “but we see real opportunities for what an engineering school can be in the midst of a liberal arts university...