To utilize light beams as tweezers to manipulate and control cells and tiny objects long nurtured in the mind of scientists around for at least 30 years. Now, making it reality MIT researchers paved the way by demonstrating the versatility, when they successfully collected and held 16 tiny living E. coli cells at once on a microchip to form readable letters ‘MIT’.
The concept now prefers infrared light on silicon chips due to opaqueness to light, which can be easily produced by lasers instead of the visible light beams. We have got some words on future aspect of this technology in terms of a neuron study, from David C. Appleyard, graduate student in Biological Engineering:
They randomly put cells down on a surface, and hope one lands on [or near] a [sensor] so its activity can be measured. With [our technology], you can put the cell right down next to the sensors.
No doubt, this innovation will enhance the capability to deposit the cells on microchips by using minuscule photon energy of light beams to move electrical circuits etched into the chips to monitor their electrical behavior.
Although, MIT don’t have any practical equipment in hand but, it can show its potential in disease detection and other biological interferences by cramming high-resolution sensors in very small spaces in the coming times. Thus, the future may soon see one of world’s smallest microtool controlling and boosting cells on chips with more precision than available at present.
Via: SMH
