MIT Invents "Lab On A Chip" To Automate Gene Studies

Genetic studies on whole animals can now be done
dramatically faster using a new microfluidic chip developed by engineers
at MIT.



The new "lab on a chip" can automatically treat, sort and image small
animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and
eliminating human error, said Mehmet Yanik, MIT assistant professor of
electrical engineering and computer science.



Yanik and his colleagues described their device in the advance online
issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of
Aug. 20. "Lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to sort and
image individual cells, but this is the first device that can be used to
study whole animals.



C. elegans is often used in studies designed to identify which genes
control which phenotypes, or traits. Researchers traditionally do this by
treating them with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which
expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such
studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip, which
sorts and images worms in milliseconds, dramatically speeds up that
process.



"Normally you would treat the animals with the chemicals, look at them
under the microscope, one at a time, and then transfer them," Yanik said.
"With this chip, we can completely automate that process."



The tiny worms are flowed inside the chip, immobilized by suction and
imaged with a high resolution microscope. Once the phenotype is
identified, the animals are routed to the appropriate section of the chip
for further screening.



The worms can be treated with mutagen, RNAi or drugs before they enter the
chip, or they can be treated directly on the chip, using a new, efficient
delivery system that loads chemicals from the wells of a microplate into
the chip.



"Our technique allows you to transfer the animals into the chip and treat
each one with a different gene silencer or a different drug," Yanik said.



Yanik and his colleagues plan to use the chips to continue their research
on neural degeneration and regeneration in C. elegans. Yanik and his
collaborators had previously demonstrated a high precision femtosecond
laser technology to cut axons in living animals and then observe which
genes are involved in axon regeneration.



The lead author of the paper is Chris Rohde, a graduate student in
electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Other authors of the
paper are Matthew Angel, a graduate student in EECS, Fei Zeng, a
postdoctoral fellow in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Ricardo
Gonzalez-Rubio, a graduate student in biological engineering.



The research was funded by MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and by
the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council and the
Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.


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