3D Printers Help Scientists Cure Oncological Diseases
It seems like high availability of 3D printers will help scientists diagnose and cure oncological diseases. American and British scientists use 3D printing in their mutual molecular DNA study project.
2D images of two-stranded DNA molecules have been benefiting the oncological diseases research for a long time. G-quadruplex and four-stranded DNA sequences are completely different things; their images are hard-to-get and need to be 3D modelled.
University of Alabama’s 3D printing lab has successfully recreated physical 3D model of this complex molecular structure. It will help scientists to understand pancreatic cancer emerging factors and speed up the process of searching its treatment methods.
The aim of the project is to gather G-quadruplex XRD analysis data and turn acquired results into a full-scale digital 3D model, available for 3D printing.
“Conversion of acquired tons of data into the 3D printed sequence has been a major challenge for us. Now that the problem has been solved, we could enjoy significant progress of our studies. G-quadruplex 3D model allows us to observe all the symmetry, edges and angles inside of the molecular structure,” said Dr. Vincent Scalfani.
Scientific research has proved that affecting the G-quadruplex using certain compounds may inhibit or stabilize the development of pancreatic cancer. 3D printed models are being used as tools for researches prior to the actual clinical testing. They give scientists better insights of the things they are dealing with, because earlier they could only see schematic pictures.
