The future is here: custom-designed living transplants! – Matt Gray is Trying: Biomedical Research

this video is sponsored by incog hi I'm Matt and today I'm trying biomedical science it seems so often that big science is hidden behind closed doors unless you know where to look and or do we know where to look I am at the Francis Crick Institute one of Europe's biggest biomedical research centers and they're going to show me some of the amazing things that they get up [Music] to I am with Emily and what is this place what is the Francis um well firstly welcome we are at the Francis Creek Institute with the largest biomedical research institute Under One Roof in Europe and we're all about Discovery Science so kind of working on fundamental biology answering big questions kind of discovering how things tick and am I right in thinking that uh Francis Crick was one of the four people who are instrumental in researching DNA right at the beginning yeah that's correct um so we're named after Crick because of this idea of a big Discovery so really pushing the envelope and finding out new things which is what we're all about so you're inside hello brain um and it's all about The Cutting Edge Neuroscience that's happening here at the Crick so we've got lots of very interesting and different things showcasing all the work that our scientists are doing this is a human brain and this is actually rowy who is one of our scientists here at the how do you get the the the picture of his brain to model it in 3D my understanding is it was quite hard this it's a crocodile's brain and it's to scale but crocodiles are so so big it's only got a space for like Snap and swim and nothing else fruit flies they're attracted to certain smells so we've got lots of research going on at the Crick as to why this is but each of these socks has a different smell in them they smell yeah they smell so if you give it sniff oh yeah that one smells quite Woody yeah I mean it's open all the things I could have thought I would be doing it wouldn't be sniffing sniff sniffing sacks yeah sniffing smell socks have they made these smell like fly as well uh I don't think so but that would have been a good idea I don't know what smell what do they smell like that's the question to ask them upstairs before I go to the lab here's a question did you know that your personal information could be collected by companies and then solds to other companies without you even knowing about it these data Brokers could be aggregating things like your name address and online activity and you could have agreed to this when accepting the terms and conditions and privacy policy of any service the good news though is you have the right to protect your privacy you can request that these data Brokers remove all the information they hold about you but to do this would involve sending individual requests to the hundreds of companies that could be holding this information incog this video sponsor has a solution for this though and it's all automated you tell them whose personal information they'll be removing and then give them permission to act on your behalf then they'll go through all of the data Brokers that they know of and request that your information is removed without you having to do anything else if this sounds like something you're interested in then go to incog tocom matray and enter code Matt Gray for 60% of an annual plan and of course the link is in the description below having reached my socks sniffing quater for the day I was allowed past the public exhibition to what I think might be my dream lab the making the making lab hello hello hi I'm going to fly lab coat up cuz I'm in a lab thank you so I believe this is the making lab yes this is the making lab this is Christina she's one of the team that works in the making lab here at the creek as a senior lrs lab research scientist sorry a lot of acronyms in uh in research yes and this is Alban she's the head of the making lab so all of this is your problem um your joy my playground yes that's a great way of saying it so what do you even do in here I can see 3D printers so here we create eight systems tool that don't exist yet for experiments so scientists come to us when they need a tool to perform an experiment and we make them with them best poke just specifically for that kind of experiment I just want to pause here because is this the coolest job ever it is Alban and Christina's entire job to play with sciency toys like 3D printers to make things that don't exist exist so they can be used in some of the most Cutting Edge research in the entire world and that's what I'll be having a go at today we use normal printers but we also use bio printers bio printers it's based on the same process as classic Extrusion so a normal 3D printer works like kind of like a glue gun where you've got some plastic that it's putting out in a line you keep going over the top of it is this that replace the glue by cells and you're going to have your in fill inner soft gel material so maybe gelatin or alginate or something like that is extruding a soft gel that has actual living cells in it and you organize them in a way that they can develop the way they should in a normal environment which would be in Vivo but we're trying to do it in vitro uh so in tiny uh Wells what does that even get used for eventually the aim is that we can do more and more experiments in these 3D constructed systems that currently we only can do in animal systems because that is a whole body um so it's to try and reduce the need for animals in research among other reasons and I suppose even if the parts are really really tiny you are 3D printing body parts at this point just really teeny teeny tiny parts of the body yeah we're cell parts Tey tiny we're mostly printing cells in particular patterns and then they will actually usually self-organized to form a top you know epithelial layer maybe a vascular layer for blood vessels muscle layer depending on the cell Ty you suggest to them where they should be and then they go organized they they take the they'll take the the uh factors that you add so the triggers and the 3D Shape the inputs they get from the 3D shape um and they can then self organize into a appropriate tissue wow so this multi-skilled team at the lab have a couple of different techniques they're going to show me today bioprinting and something called microfluidics cell-sized Plumbing essentially wow for controlling gradients of drugs or for immobilizing cells for certain experiments it can also be for slightly larger things like um we do a lot of in biology we use um nematodes for some research so it can be like tiny worms things like that or fruit flies so I know you can 3D print a tool be it like a spanner or something that this is making like micro mini Nano tools it's microfabrication yeah Alban's team 3D print the tools needed to run these micro fluidics experiments in their lab including little plates that look like this these are microfluidic systems let's have a go then let's show me show me so first let's try a microfic experiment yeah so it's over there okay I'll follow you as Christina mentioned microfluidics is essentially mini Plumbing at its core Alban's team need to create unique ways of directing teeny tiny quantities of fluid or gas to allow them to mix in certain super precise and replicable ratios they do this using a see-through chip with engraved channels ranging from tens to hundreds of micrometers wide and I love how pretty this intricate detail looks so this is a dust pre bench okay where you're going to perform the mic experiment I'm going to perform one you're going to do oh cool yes so the chip is ready the tubing is on the chip but you're going to have to basically fill the syringe with a different two media okay okay link them to the chip and then you're going to flow liquid in it so you can mix properly the two different media okay okay these microfluidic chips have applications in all sorts of areas of science like controlling how much of each substance goes into a drug this is due to the precise control over the ratios of each liquid or media that are filtered through the chip which is thanks to the design of the channels making sure that the liquid is mixed in just the right way you can also use these chips to immobilize things like nematodes as Christina mentioned earlier basically liquids act a bit differently when channeled at this scale this allows you to use the liquids to create tiny droplets and you can trap whatever you need to observe inside those droplets so for this microfic chip specifically it's more for f fundamental science fundamental research where we want to experiment specifically how cells are going to grow within a confined environment okay and for that we need to flow a specific type of media in the chip yeah so this pre Chip is going to so it's not directly like medicine or anything it's the the fundamentals of how it works kind of research exactly okay what do we do first uh so first you're going to take the syringe and fill them with the media one with the blue one with the orange okay it's a it's a best spoke syringe pump so and this is 3D printed as well so what am I taking one of the orange this is the blue you can take the blue what and suck some of that up in yes exactly I've not really used syringes before have I I bet you use them all the time and then shove it in here again exactly oh and this is going to let you squeeze both at the same time and now I've squeezed blue stuff everywhere that's fine it's made for that and then get this one out it's physical work that one no the one next to it this one this one this one yeah this fume cupboard is made for shorter people than me isn't it oh I've got a bit much in there so now you're going to open the dish we you can find the micr chip so there are three tubing okay you have to put them on the in it doesn't matter which one's which ises it no okay and then there's an output yes this is to go there okay so that's where the output is going to go wa oh that's great so we're going to be able to see these two colors going through these two pipes and I assume to do that we twist this yes and then that will push both syringes at the same speed exactly yeah okay should we do some science let's go [Music] ahead oh wow it does go really fast oh look at that oh that's amazing so what's it doing here why does it need to go through all of these channels so this specific chip is called a mixer yeah so in every little Channel actually is creating movement in the fluid so then you can mix properly um the two media and in the big chamber you have a nice little gradient from Blue to Yellow that that is completely steady so by the time it goes out so this means not only are you mixing the two things it's a steady mix out of the other end exactly so that rather than having having to put two things together and stir it that's doing the stirring for you yes that's really cool so that was made on a 3D printer this one specially yeah it's quite big so we Ed the printer I showed you earlier wow and this is big and I was having to squint to see it you can see Soo it's big oh that's really cool what's next uh next we're going to go to bioprinting bio printing let's print some body parts which way are we going over there okay let's go is this is this a Handover yeah we're going to go through to our uh bioprinting lab another room follow me it does look very science in here I'll tell you yeah this is uh where we have our bioprinting setup in this room so this is our bio printer space cool I can see the bio cuz of The Biohazard sign exactly that's how you know also the big hoods to stop anything getting in or anything getting out yes yeah we have two bio printers so this is an extrusion based one similar to the fdm that you're familiar with yeah I should probably Define what that is for anyone who doesn't know as much about 3D printing as I do fdm is one name for an extrusion-based printer like the one we were talking about earlier where a substance is pushed out of a nozzle kind of like a syringe and layered up into the shape of your design in my experience that's always been plastic but apparently in Christina's experience it's actually human cell the one in the corner there that's a light based one so similar similar concept to the resin based one these SLA printers work a bit differently they use light to set liquid resin in the shape of your design but instead of resin you're using bio material yeah we're using materials that are biocompatible so aren't going to kill cells and the also the benefit of that one is um even though it uses light which is usually toxic to cells it can use really low levels of light because of the materials they've developed to go with it so you can actually print WID cells already mixed in so that they are incorporated into your final 3D shape that is so cool and I've noticed that you've named all of your machines yes ludicrous Flamingo is a ludicrous name for a 3D printer just it has all the bangs and whistles I mean you can see you can see there are four different types of of heads attached uh and it's just like plug and playay we can have several different methods of using this um so yeah it's it's it's a fabulous fabulous over the top piece of equipment so how this one works this is what I'm going to have a go on today um how it works is it's Extrusion based so we have a little syringe of our material which we put into one of the heads we attach a nozzle on the bottom and that nozzle can be multiple different sizes depending on what you're printing so it works the same like normal plastic 3D Extrusion printers you can get different nozzle sizes but that's got an extruder that pulls plastic through as this is a syringe cuz it's liquidy yeah so it's sort of um soft gels um generally sort of jelly like or a loose jelly and uh you can see there's the blue attachment on the top so what that does is that applies uh compressed air in a controlled manner which pushes a little wi plunger down inside the tube and that's what causes the Extrusion oh so that's what we control we control the pressure that's applied and also we can control the speed that it moves around the shape we've drawn um and we can control all that from our iPad and as you someone written my name we can um draw whatever we want so we can have more complex 3D files that we might make on other software and import or we can just draw and print shapes or just write with a pen the names so for example here I have written MC gray is trying I just wrote this with the little pen uh symbol and uh you've got Mac gray in one color that means it's going to come from head two which is the second one along and that's going to be blue material is trying is in purple that's coming from head four which is going to be a red material yeah and the gels liquids that we're squirting out here I assume those are just test subjects there no actual bio no there are there we are not playing with the live cells in the moment you're not going to waste that on me yeah no these are just these are just test materials for getting to grips and and learning how to use the material the printer particular so I assume this just has has a print button on it you go go and it does it yes pretty much so if we go along on next so it's just here where we would set up all the um the parameters so the pressure the print speed I've already set that up for this and it's just like a 3D printer showing what it's going to look like yeah and any other settings ready to go go to print and start print so does it need a specific type of surface for what it's extruding to stick to or just any old dish no uh it can print on anything so it's choosing to do it in dots at the moment can it also do lines and stuff it can um but not with the simplified way I drew that you can program it cuz you can also access the G-Code are you familiar with G-Code from yes that's that's the that's the control code that 3D printers and other um comp Compu controlled Machinery uses to say what to do yeah and that's how all of the 3D models get converted into go left a bit right a bit up a bit down a bit right exactly so this uses the exact same sort of system um so we can have a very simplified model where we just draw something and it it'll figure it out but we can also go into the code and be much more precise about exactly how it moves for every structure um and actually you ask what surfaces we can print on it doesn't even have to be a flat surface if we have a 3D surface um we can as long as we have a scan of that we know what that surface is right we can put that into the software and tell the G-Code to print over on top of a 3D structure so for example one thing you might use this type of printer for is um people getting um facial reconstruction nose reconstructions if they've had some damage to that we can print cartilage um in the shape that would fit their face yeah and then we can print skin cells over the top of it and that would actually go on their face yes we're not quite there yet but but that's where the research is going that's the whole point of is the research so we can have like a picture or a scout of their face um reconstruct 3D print a nose that matches what their nose should look like 3D print a nose yes and ears ear nose and ears are kind of the easiest cuz they're mostly cartilage with a bit of skin anything where you're trying to get lots of blood vessels in those are a bit trickier right that is so magical so like there are so many Concepts I've been told here all these different things with the microfluidics in the other lab and this so dayto day you are squirting out gels into a shape yes those gels have cells inside them yes and those cells when they're in the body or in an animal they like being in a specific shape yeah and nor norly when you research with them they will be on a flat uh petri dish or something but by doing this you can put them in the shape they like being in so you can see them in their more normal environment yeah that is that is what the aim of the whole thing is to try and get them into a more natural state a state that is more um re uh reminiscent of what is actually in the body what is tricky is we don't always know perfectly how cells are in the body or how they've got that way um um and the body is very good at making the cells be the shape which they need to be um so we're trying to find ways to do some of that work yeah but also what do we need to give cells so that they will do the work themselves and they will self-organize into the shape that they want to be in so to really get bioprinting to work to to get the most out of it you need the printing knowledge the biological question and the biologist to actually ask the right questions and understand the answers you're getting you need chemistry to create the materials that will replicate but that will be um appealing to the cells and what we're actually aiming for but also those materials need to be printable which you there are so many different disciplines involved like this is the kind of thing like if if someone wanted to get involved into this kind of research like that's partially why I share this cuz it's so cool people won't even know EX exist to have a go at it yeah but if you want to do that like if you're interested in any of the fields of science or engineering because this is a machine it's got Motors and everything in it you could end up in this completely I mean my background I studied biology um but now the rest of the lab they're all Engineers I'm working more with engineering principles now with the bioprinting I'm going bit back into towards the biology stuff but it's yeah the these are things I didn't know were options when I did my degree but you can really and they might not even have been options that's the thing probably weren't yeah so you can you're not you're not committed to one discipline yeah from even up you know beyond undergrad PhD you can always find a new thing and Branch into a new thing yeah which I think is great that is amazing thank you so much for showing me all of this I can't believe it exists to this level I I can't thank you enough for your time and you're very experience shall we have a look at your prce yeah there you go oh wow can I touch yes you can touch it's my name so I've had my name written on a road before and now I've got it written in biomaterial what on Earth can I get it written in next thank you you're very welcome if you want to visit the hello brain Exhibition at the Francis cric Institute it's on until the 7th of December 2024 thanks once again to incog for more info click the link in the description for more

Channel: Matt Gray

Views: 24,840

Keywords: matt gray, mattgray, mattgrayyes, mattg, francis crick institute, microfluidics, bioprinting, biomaterial, 3d printing, printing, 3d, microfluidic chip, matt gray is trying, research, hello brain, francis crick

Id: 2DvJauB0KyU

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2024