How an iPod Could Transform Drug Testing

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Researchers at Rice University  and a Houston-based startup have developed an iOS app that enables a nanoparticle-based assay to determine a drug’s toxicity to living tissue.

The mobile app essentially provides image analysis to drug screening method that is growing in popularity. The new method aims at replacing in vivo (in living subjects) methods with in vitro (in test tube) tests to determine how drugs affect living tissue.

A Houston-based startup, Nano3D Biosciences, has developed just such anin vitro test, dubbed “BiO Assay.” It creates 3-D tissue structures that mimic the results that previously could only be derived from running tests inside living tissue. [Read More]