Lab Tour with Nicole Iverson

Mary Jane Bruce Author

03/25/2021 Added

7 Plays

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Nicole Iverson, assistant professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, studies tiny sensors with the goal of improving diagnosis of diseases like cancer.

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[00:00:00.004](compelling music)
[00:00:04.550]My research has two overall goals.
[00:00:06.810]We use carbon nanotubes as sensors
[00:00:10.390]and one of the goals is to make
[00:00:12.370]these carbon nanotube sensors easier to use.
[00:00:15.720]The other goal is that we want to understand what is going
[00:00:19.860]on with cells and nitric oxide.
[00:00:22.930]Nitric oxide is a very important molecule.
[00:00:26.710]It's nitrogen and oxygen, two atoms,
[00:00:29.870]but it is essential for life.
[00:00:31.740]You cannot live without it.
[00:00:32.902](compelling music)
[00:00:34.690]Nano means really small
[00:00:36.570]and the reason it's so interesting is
[00:00:38.730]that when you get to that nanoscale,
[00:00:40.260]that really small scale, everything changes.
[00:00:43.250]And so we have to rediscover everything at the nanoscale.
[00:00:47.670]And that's really important because our bodies function
[00:00:52.320]in a way where the smallest little particle
[00:00:54.350]can make a difference.
[00:00:55.670]And so if we don't understand it,
[00:00:58.120]how can we understand how the body functions?
[00:01:00.062](compelling music)
[00:01:03.450]This is our nano enclosure.
[00:01:06.280]Anytime we use the nanoparticles that could be aerosolized,
[00:01:10.270]we do it inside this enclosure.
[00:01:13.240]We wear gloves because we don't know the interactions
[00:01:17.250]that our skin is gonna have with different chemicals
[00:01:20.360]and so it's really important to always protect yourself.
[00:01:22.810]And so safety is something that I'm very, very strict
[00:01:26.380]about in my lab.
[00:01:28.800]So when it's time to start making
[00:01:31.110]our carbon nanotube sensors,
[00:01:33.070]we come over here, we take our carbon nanotubes,
[00:01:35.880]and we put everything in the hood.
[00:01:39.280]We then are gonna turn on the light and the blower.
[00:01:43.123](fume hood beeps)
[00:01:44.110]And then we can use the different implements in here.
[00:01:47.830]One of the fun ones that I never knew about
[00:01:49.650]before working with carbon nanotubes is this Zerostat,
[00:01:53.710]but it actually takes away static electricity.
[00:01:57.970]The carbon nanotubes themselves are very static
[00:02:00.900]and so as we try to scoop them into something
[00:02:03.650]to weigh them out, they will stick to the walls.
[00:02:07.000]And so we unstatic it so that it'll transfer much easier.
[00:02:11.510]And then we use special scale to measure everything
[00:02:14.300]to a very, very precise level
[00:02:15.910]because we're using very small volumes, very small mass.
[00:02:20.030]So you have the scale that's closed on all sides
[00:02:23.990]so that even a little bit of a breeze
[00:02:26.850]will not change what you're weighing
[00:02:29.320]and it won't let the powder fly off.
[00:02:33.040]So this is a very typical chemical hood
[00:02:35.090]that a lot of chemistry labs will have.
[00:02:37.400]And so we have a couple
[00:02:38.360]of interesting instruments that we use.
[00:02:40.760]One is our tip sonicator.
[00:02:44.960]The tip sonicator vibrates very, very, very, very fast,
[00:02:50.030]and so it throws out a ton of energy.
[00:02:52.440]It throws out so much energy that when we take one
[00:02:55.340]of these plastic tubes, we put the tip down inside.
[00:03:00.360]If the tip touches the side of the plastic tube,
[00:03:03.010]it melts and you have a hole.
[00:03:05.560]And so you have to pack it in ice, put the tip in there.
[00:03:09.680]And we use that as part of the process
[00:03:11.700]for making our carbon nanotubes.
[00:03:13.424](compelling music)
[00:03:16.670]What Becca's doing right now is she's preparing the hood
[00:03:19.500]so that she can work inside it.
[00:03:21.200]The hood is really important
[00:03:22.460]for anybody who does tissue culture
[00:03:25.010]because it keeps our cultures clean.
[00:03:27.990]And so the way that the hood works
[00:03:30.090]is it blows air down from the top.
[00:03:32.940]So anything that Becca's hand crosses
[00:03:35.710]over is no longer considered sterile.
[00:03:38.320]So you'll notice that she has to open a bag even
[00:03:41.020]in a super special way.
[00:03:43.040]Because we're biomedical engineers,
[00:03:44.560]we work a lot with cells.
[00:03:46.520]And so instead of first putting something
[00:03:49.190]into the human body,
[00:03:50.410]we first want to see how a cell interacts with it.
[00:03:53.150]And so Becca has some cells that come
[00:03:56.270]from a breast cancer patient.
[00:03:59.240]And so we take these breast cancer cells
[00:04:02.170]and we grow them up.
[00:04:03.820]And then, we will be able to look at them
[00:04:07.950]and learn about how those cells are acting.
[00:04:11.350]Because if you don't understand how the cells work,
[00:04:14.070]you can't treat them as well as you could otherwise.
[00:04:18.690]And right now, she is going to be making some solutions.
[00:04:23.130]We're gonna be testing to see how fast the cells grow.
[00:04:28.020]And then, once she figures out which cells she wants,
[00:04:31.730]how many cells does she want to put on our platforms,
[00:04:34.790]she'll then be able to look and see as the cells grow
[00:04:37.770]how much nitric oxide are they releasing.
[00:04:40.550]Because one of the theories is that cancers cells
[00:04:44.650]that metastasize, which is go through the body,
[00:04:47.620]release more nitric oxide than cells that don't.
[00:04:51.800]But then, another theory is that cancer cells
[00:04:55.220]that metastasize produce less nitric oxide
[00:04:58.890]than cells that don't.
[00:05:00.290]And so nobody knows.
[00:05:01.810]And that's the glory of these sensors
[00:05:03.390]is we'll be able to look at one specific cell
[00:05:06.620]and we'll be able to say this cell is growing and splitting,
[00:05:10.360]it's going from one cell to two,
[00:05:12.490]or the cell is moving across the surface.
[00:05:15.880]What are the levels of nitric oxide for that single cell?
[00:05:19.158](compelling music)
[00:05:22.270]This is our special microscope.
[00:05:24.940]All microscopes will look at an image,
[00:05:26.820]a two dimensional image,
[00:05:29.170]but our microscope needs were really specific.
[00:05:33.010]We needed to be able to look at fluorescence
[00:05:35.920]which is light that comes off of the particle
[00:05:38.740]in the near infrared range.
[00:05:40.790]We also wanted to be able to not just look at the 2D image,
[00:05:44.980]but be able to get a spectrum of the light
[00:05:48.380]in every single pixel in that 2D image.
[00:05:52.860]So we call that hyperspectral imaging and so
[00:05:56.800]that's really important for our carbon nanotubes
[00:06:00.890]because we want to be able to say
[00:06:02.270]that the fluorescence we see at this spot
[00:06:05.150]is for sure caused by our nanotubes,
[00:06:08.160]it's not caused by something else.
[00:06:10.560]And the spectrum for each individual sensor
[00:06:15.060]has its own specific spectrum
[00:06:16.930]and so we know what we should see
[00:06:18.950]if it is our carbon nanotube.
[00:06:21.330]And so usually, what we do is we turn on a laser
[00:06:27.630]that then goes and shines the light onto the sample
[00:06:32.180]that's down here.
[00:06:34.700]Then, the laser light goes back up through
[00:06:37.990]into the camera and it shows up on the computer.
[00:06:42.250]So if the laser is on, you do not look through this.
[00:06:46.520]The laser will burn your eyes out.
[00:06:48.650]And that's why we have our safety glasses
[00:06:51.010]and that's why the laser is not on right now.
[00:06:53.400]And so Ivon is pulling up the system
[00:06:56.970]so that we can look at the cells that are on this sample
[00:07:02.880]on the microscope.
[00:07:04.290]And for this, we could look through the oculars
[00:07:06.970]if we wanted to, but usually we look on the screen
[00:07:10.520]because we'll end up being able to then record the image.
[00:07:14.630]And in science, taking a recording is really important.
[00:07:17.267](compelling music)
[00:07:20.010]So this is an example of our carbon nanotube sensors.
[00:07:24.000]And as you can see, they're bright here.
[00:07:26.860]And then as we move through time,
[00:07:29.780]the nanotubes are getting darker and darker and darker.
[00:07:34.870]So from this point,
[00:07:39.020]Ivon added the nitric oxide
[00:07:40.890]which causes the sensors to turn off or clench
[00:07:44.540]and so you can see how the black is moving
[00:07:48.360]across the sensors, turning them off
[00:07:50.220]as the nitric oxide solution flows across the surface
[00:07:54.270]of our nanotubes until they're totally turned off.
[00:07:57.132](compelling music)
[00:08:01.610]This research can help people in so many ways.
[00:08:04.620]It can help people by diagnosing them earlier
[00:08:07.210]with sensors that can tell you what's actually going on.
[00:08:09.770]You can actually tell someone what is wrong,
[00:08:13.080]what disease you have,
[00:08:14.100]and then you can figure out how do I live with it
[00:08:16.280]or how do I treat it?
[00:08:17.191](compelling music)
[00:08:21.790]There are biomedical engineers that work
[00:08:23.640]at device companies.
[00:08:25.230]So any medical device like pacemaker,
[00:08:28.410]the next time you're in a hospital or a doctor's office,
[00:08:30.840]look around.
[00:08:31.870]Almost everything was designed by a biomedical engineer.
[00:08:34.880]Medications, drugs, even sunscreen.
[00:08:38.490]A biomedical engineer, if they can create something
[00:08:41.960]or they can discover it, nobody knows it was us,
[00:08:44.710]but we can affect the whole world.
[00:08:46.900]The people who made the COVID vaccine.
[00:08:49.140]We don't know the names of those people,
[00:08:51.270]but they have changed the world.
[00:08:53.750]And so for me, it's my little way of changing the world.
[00:08:57.578](compelling music)

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Lab Tour with Nicole Iverson

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