A new biosensor for detecting cancer lymph nodes was developed based on the electrochemical tracing of fatty acid oxidation. The sensor needles were decorated with superhydrophobic multi-walled carbon nanotubes using laser irradiation... more
A new biosensor for detecting cancer lymph nodes was developed based on the electrochemical tracing of fatty acid oxidation. The sensor needles were decorated with superhydrophobic multi-walled carbon nanotubes using laser irradiation nano-welding.
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ABSTRACT Elastomers are flexible polymers with low young’s modulus and high failure strain. VHB, considered as an acrylic elastomer, is widely used in smart materials due to its dielectric and electromechanical actuating properties. To... more
ABSTRACT Elastomers are flexible polymers with low young’s modulus and high failure strain. VHB, considered as an acrylic elastomer, is widely used in smart materials due to its dielectric and electromechanical actuating properties. To the best of our knowledge, this polymer has not been applied as cell culture and stretching substrate and this role has played by PDMS. Herein, we present the structural properties of VHB vs. PDMS and then prove the safety of using this polymer as cell culture substrate by different viability assays. Moreover, we analyzed the effect of stretching of VHB substrate on the cultured cells. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
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In the case of the COVID-19 early diagnosis, numerous tech innovations have been introduced, and many are currently employed worldwide. But, all of the medical procedures for the treatment of this disease, up to now, are just limited to... more
In the case of the COVID-19 early diagnosis, numerous tech innovations have been introduced, and many are currently employed worldwide. But, all of the medical procedures for the treatment of this disease, up to now, are just limited to chemical drugs. All of the scientists believe that the major challenge toward the mortality of the COVID-19 patients is the out-of-control immune system activation and the subsequent cytokine production. During this process, the adaptive immune system is highly activated, and many of the lymphocytes start to clonally expand; hence many cytokines are also released. So, any attempt to harness this cytokine storm and calm down the immune outrage is appreciated. While the battleground for the immune hyperactivation is the lung ambient of the infected patients, the only medical treatment for suppressing the hypercytokinemia is based on the immunosuppressor drugs that systemically dampen the immunity with many unavoidable side effects. Here, we applied the...
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Background: For most people, the first step in treatment is to take out the tumor (surgery), so precise and fast diagnosis of any sign of high-risk cells in surgical cavity margins is significant. The frozen pathology method is the... more
Background: For most people, the first step in treatment is to take out the tumor (surgery), so precise and fast diagnosis of any sign of high-risk cells in surgical cavity margins is significant. The frozen pathology method is the conventional standard of intraoperative diagnosis, but the low number of slides prepared from non-fixed tissues prevents us to achieve a perfect diagnosis. Although many improvements in intraoperative margin detection were achieved, still no clinically approved intra-operative technique has been reported for the detection of surgical margins with pathologically approved classification in breast cancer.Methods: From November 2018 to April 2020, 227 patients were registered and 213 with different types of breast tumors (IDC: n=151 (70.9%), ILC: n=6 (2.8%), DCIS: n=38 (17.8%), Atypia: n=8 (3.8%), Benign tumors: n=10 (%4.7)) were randomly assigned for CDP clinical trials. Men made up 2 (1%) of the patients; 211 (99%) were women. Functionalized carbon nanotube...
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We present a new design on the Single Needle Electrochemical Therapy method by introducing some major improvements, including a nanoporous platinum electrode, tunablein situanode size, and intratherapeutic impedance recording by the same... more
We present a new design on the Single Needle Electrochemical Therapy method by introducing some major improvements, including a nanoporous platinum electrode, tunablein situanode size, and intratherapeutic impedance recording by the same needle.
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A new biosensor for detecting cancer lymph nodes was developed based on the electrochemical tracing of fatty acid oxidation. The sensor needles were decorated with superhydrophobic multi-walled carbon nanotubes using laser irradiation... more
A new biosensor for detecting cancer lymph nodes was developed based on the electrochemical tracing of fatty acid oxidation. The sensor needles were decorated with superhydrophobic multi-walled carbon nanotubes using laser irradiation nano-welding.
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Abstract It is well-known that cancerous transformation induces many disruptions in the chemical, mechanical, and electrical functions of cells. However, limited data have been reported on their correlative behavior, such as... more
Abstract It is well-known that cancerous transformation induces many disruptions in the chemical, mechanical, and electrical functions of cells. However, limited data have been reported on their correlative behavior, such as mechanoelectrical responses. In this work, we have applied dielectrophoretic stimulation using transparent Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) microelectrodes to analyze the mechanical deformation of the cells. Our studies have shown high electrodeformation response in non-cancer cells (e.g., for the breast cell line (MCF-10A) ∼21 %). In contrast, the stretch response to the same applied dielectrophoretic stimulation was extremely weak in malignant cells (breast cell line (MDA-MB-231) ∼6 %). This observation points to a new cancer investigation technique based on the real-time correlation between dielectric properties and mechanical behaviors of single cells. Using the smaller electro-deformative ability of cancer cells compared to healthy ones, we have designed and proposed a label-free mechanoelectrical chip to detect metastatic cancer cells in unprocessed tumor samples. The methods of conventional pathology and immunofluorescence assays confirmed the results obtained from our "Dielectrophoretic Stretch Assay" (DSA). This method could help develop protocols for detecting micro invasions in small samples of suspicious masses or cytological samples diagnosis without requirement to pretreatment or labeling and in single-cell resolutions.
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Rapid and label-free detection of the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients by an electrochemical impedimetric biosensor with a graphene working electrode.
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Abstract Cell-free analysis based on environmental secretions of the cells/tissues, such as point of care testing, is a rapidly evolving area with advances in integrating sample handling, cheap fabrication, and easy operation. Also, they... more
Abstract Cell-free analysis based on environmental secretions of the cells/tissues, such as point of care testing, is a rapidly evolving area with advances in integrating sample handling, cheap fabrication, and easy operation. Also, they could be used as complementary cell-based analysis without inducing any perturbation on standard assays. Here, we present a secretion-based cyclic voltammetry biosensor with the assistance of silicon nanowire electrodes to detect ionic concentration changes in the secretions of breast normal and cancer cell lines after being treated by Paclitaxel drug. Changes in CV peaks of the secretions showed a meaningful correlation with the levels of apoptosis after drug treatment in both healthy and malignant cells. Such changes were sharper in MDA-MB-231 than MCF-10A cell lines. This platform could be applied as a cell-free apoptosis sensor to monitor the drug resistance of cancer cells. The sensor is not single used and could be re-used by a simple rinse protocol.
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BackgroundWe discovered that pure positive electrostatic charges (PECs) have an intrinsic suppressive effect on the proliferation and metabolism of invasive cancer cells (cell lines and animal models) without affecting normal... more
BackgroundWe discovered that pure positive electrostatic charges (PECs) have an intrinsic suppressive effect on the proliferation and metabolism of invasive cancer cells (cell lines and animal models) without affecting normal tissues.MethodsWe interacted normal and cancer cell lines and animal tumors with PECs by connecting a charged patch to cancer cells and animal tumors. many biochemical, molecular and radiological assays were carried out on PEC treated and control samples.ResultsCorrelative interactions between electrostatic charges and cancer cells contain critical unknown factors that influence cancer diagnosis and treatment. Different types of cell analyses prove PEC‐based apoptosis induction in malignant cell lines. Flowcytometry and viability assay depict selective destructive effects of PEC on malignant breast cancer cells. Additionally, strong patterns of pyknotic apoptosis, as well as downregulation of proliferative‐associated proteins (Ki67, CD31, and HIF‐1α), were obse...
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For most people, the first step in treatment is to take out the tumor (surgery), so precise and fast diagnosis of any sign of high‐risk and neoplastic cells, especially in surgical cavity margins, is significant. The frozen pathology... more
For most people, the first step in treatment is to take out the tumor (surgery), so precise and fast diagnosis of any sign of high‐risk and neoplastic cells, especially in surgical cavity margins, is significant. The frozen pathology method is the conventional standard of intraoperative diagnosis, but the low number of slides prepared from non‐fixed tissues prevents us from achieving a perfect diagnosis. Although many improvements in intraoperative margin detection were achieved, still real‐time detection of neoplastic lesions is crucial to improving diagnostic quality. Functionalized carbon nanotubes grown on the electrode needles lively and selectively determine the H2O2 released from cancer/atypical cells through reverse Warburg effect and hypoxia assisted glycolysis pathways in a quantitative electrochemical manner. The study was carried out on cell lines, 57 in vivo mice models with breast cancer, and 258 fresh in vitro samples of breast cancer tumors. A real‐time electrotechni...
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While limited investigations have been reported on CTC elimination and its profits, recently, some new works were reported on detection followed by the destruction of CTCs. Limitations and complications of CTC capturing procedures have... more
While limited investigations have been reported on CTC elimination and its profits, recently, some new works were reported on detection followed by the destruction of CTCs. Limitations and complications of CTC capturing procedures have highly reduced the chance of selective destruction of CTCs in the bloodstream in the therapeutic guidelines of the patients. Here, we selectively deactivated the invasive function of CTCs during their circulation in the bloodstream by exposing the whole blood to pure positive electrostatic charge stimulation (PPECS). Our treatment suppressed pulmonary metastasis and extended the survival of the mice had been intravenously injected by electrostatically deactivated 4T1 breast cancer CTCs. Moreover, the number of cancerous lung nodules was drastically reduced in the mice injected by treated CTCs in comparison with the non-treated cohort. Evaluating the side effect of the PPECS on the blood components revealed no major effect on the functional properties of the white blood cells, and just a negligible fraction (∼10%) was damaged during this process. This approach does not need any capturing or targeting of CTCs from the blood as it is focused on perturbing the electrical function of negatively-charged tumor cells after being exposed to positive electrostatic charges. Taken together, continuous in-vivo deactivation of CTCs by PPECS with no requirement to complicated capturing protocols may improve the survival of cancer patients.
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Production of local microbubbles (MBs) with dense distribution in tumor environment is achieved by developing an integrated electrochemical stimulator on a microfabricated silicon needle covered by zinc‐oxide nanowires (ZnONWs). MBs are... more
Production of local microbubbles (MBs) with dense distribution in tumor environment is achieved by developing an integrated electrochemical stimulator on a microfabricated silicon needle covered by zinc‐oxide nanowires (ZnONWs). MBs are then exploded by external ultrasonic actuation, which induce microcavitations in tumor cells followed by direct entrance of anticancer drugs into cancer cells. This system, named ZnO nanowire‐based microbubble generator probe (ZnONW‐MGP), is tested on tumorized mice models (by MC4L2 breast cell lines). Mice treated by ZnONW‐MGP have ≈82% reduction in tumor size within 10 days with just 25% of conventional dose of paclitaxel while in the absence of the system, they have just a 15% reduction in tumor size. Presence of ZnO nanostructures on microneedles strongly reduces the size of MBs and enhances the efficacy of the sonoporation.
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ABSTRACT Elastomers are flexible polymers with low young’s modulus and high failure strain. VHB, considered as an acrylic elastomer, is widely used in smart materials due to its dielectric and electromechanical actuating properties. To... more
ABSTRACT Elastomers are flexible polymers with low young’s modulus and high failure strain. VHB, considered as an acrylic elastomer, is widely used in smart materials due to its dielectric and electromechanical actuating properties. To the best of our knowledge, this polymer has not been applied as cell culture and stretching substrate and this role has played by PDMS. Herein, we present the structural properties of VHB vs. PDMS and then prove the safety of using this polymer as cell culture substrate by different viability assays. Moreover, we analyzed the effect of stretching of VHB substrate on the cultured cells. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
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Research Interests:
Sonoporation is applied to enhance the permeability of the cell to bioactive materials by employing the acoustic cavitation of microbubbles. This phenomena would be helpful in molecular biology, delivery of large molecules into the cells... more
Sonoporation is applied to enhance the permeability of the cell to bioactive materials by employing the acoustic cavitation of microbubbles. This phenomena would be helpful in molecular biology, delivery of large molecules into the cells and gene therapy. Many methods have been applied to monitor the biological effects and trace of sonoporation on the cells such as scanning/transmission electron microscopy, confocal imaging and flow cytometry. Here, we monitored the effect of sonoporation on the cells using electrochemical method with an integrated three electrode system. Electrochemical responses of stimulated cells, compared to flow cytometry and electron microscopy results, presented different patterns of sonoporation in the cells detectable by cyclic voltammetry. In addition, confocal microscopy from actin stress fibers and young's modulus measured by AFM revealed the correlation of cell mechanics and amount of induced sonopores in the cells. This method could be applied as ...
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Detecting the micrometastasis is a major challenge in patients' survival. The small volume of the biopsied tissue results in limited number of histopathological samples and might reduce the rate of accurate diagnosis even by molecular... more
Detecting the micrometastasis is a major challenge in patients' survival. The small volume of the biopsied tissue results in limited number of histopathological samples and might reduce the rate of accurate diagnosis even by molecular technologies. We introduce a microelectronic biochip (named Metas-Chip) to detect the micrometastasis in unprocessed liquid or solid samples. It works based on the tendency of malignant cells to track single human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC)-sensing traps. Such cells detach themselves from the biopsied sample and invade the sensing traps by inducing membrane retraction and blebbing, which result in sharp changes in electrical response of the sensing elements. Metas-Chip identified the metastasis in more than 70 breast cancer patients, in less than 5 h. Moreover it detected the metastasis in lymph nodes of nine patients whom were missed by conventional pathological procedure. Multilevel IHC and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR...