A Purdue startup recently received federal funding to further develop a microscope capable of detecting cellular motion in 3-D tissue. The startup Animated Dynamics Inc. www.anidyn.com received a two year SBIR Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for $744,066 to help develop the biodynamic microscope.
Animated Dynamics founded by Purdue Physics Professor and President David D. Nolte and Executive Vice President and CFO John Turek johm@anidyn.com, report that the Animated Dynamics biodynamic microscope differs from traditional microscopes. Traditional microscopes magnify small objects but the biodynamic imaging microscope is able to study a cell’s phenotype.
By studying the phenotype, scientists can now see how cell samples behave, both mechanically and functionally in the 3-D environment of living tissues. Cells are mechanical machines, and if scientists study their motion, they can tell what they are doing. Also, if the cells break down, you can see how the motions are changing.
According to Turek, the company will be able to create a more refined commercial version of the imaging platform because of the NSF grant. He said, “The next step will be to do extensive field testing by beta users.”
Animated Dynamics (AniDyn located in the Kurz Purdue Technology Center in West Lafayette Indiana, is focused on the development and commercialization of live tissue imaging platform technologies to find solutions and application in life and health sciences.
The company licenses technology through the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization. A video about the company is available at http://youtu.be/sWGv7h54mLE.