NaturalNano, Inc. Acting CEO and President James Wemett announced that a series of feasibility studies have been initiated under the direction of Professor Michael King, Ph.D. of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca New York and in co-operation with CellTraffix Inc. Dr King will be assessing whether NaturalNano’s proprietary Halloysite nanotubes enhance the adhesion of circulating cells to reactive surfaces, and thus hold promise for improving technologies of CellTraffix Inc. for the isolation of rare cell populations from blood or other samples, particularly adult stem cells and cancer cells in the blood.
Dr. King is a pioneer in the use of microtubes coated with “selectin” protein to which the targeted cells adhere. Improvement of the adhesion of targeted cells in the blood and bone marrow would significantly advance prospects of commercializing devices for research uses as well as diagnostic and therapeutic applications of this groundbreaking technology which would represent a significant advance over current cell collection methods.
“Our results obtained so far indicate that monolayer coatings of these interesting halloysite nanotubes result in significantly altered protein deposition and surface interactions with cells. We are now initiating tests of these coatings with clinical cell samples,” says King.
Mr. Wemett said “We are pleased with the results and excited to be working with such a prestigious University and the professional lab of Dr. King”
This work on Halloysite nanotubes by to be carried out by Dr. King is an opportunity to significantly advance our progress in developing a device that can be used commercially to isolate stem or certain cancer cells,” said Thomas Fitzgerald, CEO of CellTraffix, which is commercializing the research done by Dr. King and his team.