Lasers are already very important tools in patient diagnostics , and it's highly likely that their usefulness in medical applications will only continue to grow over time. Recent findings suggest that they also hold the potential to advance neuron regeneration for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Researchers at the University of Crete and the University of Sheffield were able to use lasers to fabricate highly intricate scaffolds that may serve as a delivery vehicle to drop cells off at a specific damaged location, and help them attach and grow, after which they will degrade in the body without any damage to the cells or the host.
The scaffold was fabricated from a commonly used polymer — polylactic acid (PLA), a synthetic, biocompatible material. An ultra-fast, titanium sapphire laser was tightly focused on the PLA material and moved through three dimensions to create complicated sub-micrometer structures. Study co-author Professor Frederik Claeyssens said, “This is the first time we have been able to structure polylactide with such high resolution and the first time that direct laser writing has been applied to tissue engineering."
In the study, neuronal cells showed good compatibility with the PLA structures, with less than 10% of the cells dying after five days.
Read more about lasers' applications in diagnostics here.
