"The key finding of our paper in the journal Nanotechnology is that we have measured the nanomechanics of up to hundreds of cells simultaneously, enabling high throughput cell screening," commented Jim Gimzewski. "Our goal is to make these methods available within standard optical microscopes so that they can be used by pathologists, microbiologists and medical staff who use this technique on a daily basis for medical diagnosis."
The method uses a special type of optical microscope usable by the medical profession and the authors demonstrated it with well known cell lines and drugs. Previously, these authors have been able to use a technique known as atomic force microscopy to interrogate the softness of human cells and directly correlate them with metastasis, the point where cancer cells invade the body. That technique uses a single probe where as the new method described in the Nanotechnology article will allow automated and fast screening of many cancer cells from clinical samples as well as enabling the screening of chemotherapy drugs with a goal of personalized medicine best suited to the response of an individual patient’s cells.
These methods could become available within standard optical microscopes so that they can be used by pathologists, microbiologists and medical staff who use this technique on a daily basis for medical diagnosis. This is an example of research that is directed at providing new techniques for medical diagnostics that go beyond standard clinical protocols. The authors of the paper are particularly focussed on taking nanotechnologies from the research laboratory into a clinical setting to measure mechanical properties such as the stiffness or stickiness of cells and correlating these with physiological function.These properties, known as nanomechanics, have recently been accessible to researchers working on cells and bacteria.
By Jason Reed, Matthew Frank, Joshua J Troke, Joanna Schmit, Sen Han, Michael A Teitell and James K Gimzewski
• The work presented in this paper has been chosen by Inspec as it's 10 millionth record. Please visit Inspec reaches its 10 millionth record for additional information.