Bioengineering: Nanoparticles and Neural Computing

What if cancer cells can be killed with micro-explosions? Could modeling a human brain help us create faster computers? Bioengineering research is providing some promising solutions. We put together two bio-inspired, promising research projects. Rice University's quadrapeutic technique to kill cancer cells with nanoparticles, and Stanford's NeuroGrid, the most advanced circuit board modeled after the brain.

Quadrapeutics
Nanoparticles, Laser, Drugs and Radiation

Cell biologist Dmitri Lapotko, and his team at Rice University's lab Nanobubble Lab, created a technique using nanoparticles to deliver targeted bursts and kill cancer cells. It works by quickly zapping a near-infrared laser to hollowed colloidal gold nanoparticles, making them burst and create a short-lived bubbles that can blow up the cells around it.

The study was pusblished on Nature. Performed on hard-to-treat head and neck cancers, the nanoparticles were tagged with antibodies that target cancer cells and cause them to cluster inside. When bubbles create micro-explosions that damage cancer cell membranes, the clustered nanoparticles release chemoteraphy drugs directly into the cell cytoplasm, also serving to magnify the X-rays delivering radiation.

The method was so effective that with just 3% of the normal drug dose and 6% of the standard radiation dose effectively eliminated tumors within a week. Nanoparticles are small enough to avoid damage surrounding healthy cells.

NeuroGrid 
Circuit Board Modeled after the Brain

A team of Stanford University engineers led by Kwabena Boahen has developed a circuit board and chips, that simulates the activity of a million neurons 9,000 times faster than a personal computer could and is 100,000 times more energy efficient. They reported the findings in a recent issue of IEEE.

The circuit board, called Neurogrid, consists of 16 custom-designed Neurocore chips. Each chip simulates 65,536 neurons. The board can simulate 1 million neurons and billions of synaptic connections. Although more energy efficient, the prototype costed $40,000 to make, with expected bulk production to bring the price down to $400.

We also recommend watching: "Oxygen Particle:  Live Without Breathing" and "Jeff Hawkins: How Brain Science Will Change Computing".

Bioengineering: Nanoparticles and Neural Computing

Dmitri Lapotko is a Biocemistry and Cell Biology faculty at Rice University. His Nanobubble Lab focuses on nanotechnology, imaging and microscopy, and early diagnostics research. Kwabena Boahen is a Computer and Electrical Engineering researcher at Stanford University. His research focuses on multi-purpose chips inspired by biology.