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Posts Tagged ‘Cellular Guillotine’

Cellular Guillotine Created for Studying Single-Cell Wound Repair

Posted in Automated Cell Processing, Cell Biology, tagged , , , on June 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Cellular Guillotine Created for Studying Single-Cell Wound Repair

Reporter: Irina Robu, PhD

Using the century-old cutting method, it would take a researcher five hours to cut 100 cells, and by the time they were done, the cells they cut first would be well on their way to healing.

In an effort to comprehend how a single cell heal, mechanical engineer Sing Tand developed a microscopic guillotine that proficiently cuts cells into two.

Tang, who is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University knew that finding a way to competently slice the cell in two could lead to engineering self-healing materials and machines. In order, to efficiently slice a cell in two he developed a tool that could cut 150 cells in just over 2 minutes, and the cuts were much more standardized and synchronized in the stage of their repair process. They attained this rate by creating a scaled-up version of their tool with eight identical parallel channels that run simultaneously. Being able to efficiently study cell healing could eventually help scientists study and treat a variety of human diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to Tang’s cellular guillotine, scientists used to slice cells by hand under a microscope using a glass needle which is a method that can lead to errors.

Tang’s method can be the Holy Grail of engineering self-healing materials and machines.

SOURCE

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/26/stanford-scientists-create-cellular-guillotine-studying-single-cell-wound-repair/

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