Team Jupiter Entry 1

Team Jupiter met for the first time on the 21st. There we discussed the type of cell we were assigned for the nano tech project. Our cell, the gastrointestinal epithelial cell, lines the intestinal wall. Some pertinant points include the following:

*The cells die very quickly due to the stress of being exposed to intestinal environments. They die in as few as 2-5 days, unlike 2-3 months like some epithelial cells in the pancreas.
*The cells are columnar, with tight junctions preventing materials from crossing directly into the blood stream. Glucose must pass through the cell.
*They have folds on the lumin side of the intestines so as to have the greatest surface area for diffusion

We concluded that it would be difficult to treat the cells with machines entirely in the cell because they die and sluff off so fast. This means our machines would need to be able to move quickly to the next cell or more likely the treatment would involve constant unflux of new machines.

The advantage of GI intestinal cells is that they are easily accessable. Our delivery system could be daily oral intake of nanomachines (most likely in pill form).

Another thing to consider is the abundance of intestinal pathogens that adhere to/take advantage of the nature of GI epithelial cells. We could emulate these in the creation of our machines.