MCI Snippets: MCI celebrates hope with new technology
The Biotek Cytation 7 was purchased with funds raised at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute’s Celebrate Hope gala.
Cancer researcher Robert W. Sobol, Ph.D., holds up a 96-well microplate to illustrate how new technology is helping scientists at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute glean more information from their experiments.
“We can start evaluating experimental outcomes in a more reproducible and uniform way across a 96-well plate,” said Sobol, chief of the Molecular and Metabolic Oncology Program at the MCI and a professor of pharmacology at the USA College of Medicine. “This gives us an opportunity to start out at a higher level.”
The new technology is in the form of the Biotek Cytation 7, a cell imaging multi-mode reader that is about the size of a large desktop printer. The machine combines automated digital upright and inverted microscopy with versatile multi-mode detection. In other words, it “can visualize and quantify most any cell changes that can be observed microscopically, with the advantage of analyzing 96 separate samples or wells,” Sobol said.
A winner of the 2021 Scientists’ Choice Awards for Drug Discovery and Development, the Cytation 7 was purchased with funds raised at MCI’s Celebrate Hope gala.
Scientists at the MCI can use the Cytation 7 for a variety of experiments, including many studies related to DNA damage and repair, which play a significant role in the development of and treatment for cancer.
One research project under way looks at how cells overcome blockages that result in a “runaway train” of cell replication in cancer. Studying the proteins involved can help scientists understand how to reinforce the blockage to prevent cancer cells from replicating and to develop compounds that one day could be used as an effective therapy.
