Cancer Research with a Mechatronics Twist

One non-traditional mechatronics endeavor is advanced cancer research. For instance, the looming prospect of injecting patients with nano particles to deliver drugs to a tumor is bringing engineers and traditional cancer researchers together.

And together they came last week at the MIT Cancer Briefing put on by the David K. Koch Institute for Cancer Research. Research into cutting-edge cancer-fighting techniques requires electrical, chemical and materials engineers as well as traditional cancer fighters such as biologists and MDs. Indeed, the Koch Institute’s faculty includes a broad range of engineering backgrounds, suggesting a mechatronics twist.

One intriguing session was called “Drawing the Wiring Diagram of a Cancer Cell” and was akin to studying the traces on a semiconductor. However, the analogy used by Michael Yaffe, MD and MIT associate professor of biological engineering, was diagraming the plumbing and wiring in a house. He compared a cancer cell to “a giant electrical circuit” where researchers identify the “inputs.”     

“We pick some pathway and we view the cell like plumbing or wiring of a house,” he said. “We build an engineering interface to biology. How are cancer cells wired differently than a normal cell? What is the information flow?”

Another promising area of research involves the properties of inject-able nano particles whose toxicity is not damaging to the patient. Studying this promising therapy is Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia, an MD, an associate professor of health sciences and technology and an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. She has degrees in mechanical and medical engineering. A fellow panelist was Angela Belcher, a professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering. Another was Prof. Michael Cima, a materials professor with a Ph.D in chemical engineering. Her panel was “The Big Impact of (Very) Small Science, Part One.”

The “…Part Two” session featured biotechnology superstar and MIT Institute Professor Robert S. Langer, who holds more than 600 issued or pending patents. He has won acclaim and countless awards for his drug discoveries. His education includes two degrees in chemical engineering.

He spoke about “targeted drug delivery” with particles smaller than 200 nanometers. If traditional therapies shoot a bullet at a tumor, targeted drug delivery is akin to shooting “tens of thousands of bullets,” he said. “[You] target the cells you want.”

Key enabling technologies to such targeted drug delivery are new imaging technologies and “more sensitive diagnostics,” which of course require a range of engineering disciplines, not to mention sheer brilliance.