Plasmonic Photothermal Surgery on Fragile Living Cells

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0853500ChiouThis proposal aims to develop a live, single-cell somatic and stem cell surgery toolenabling high efficiency intracellular manipulations, such as the delivery of small molecules, macromolecular structures, and organelles like mitochondria. The long term goal is to enhance capabilities in stem cell biology for the repair of damaged or worn out tissues due to congenital dysfunction, aging, or the ravages of disease, such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and atherosclerosis. Developing this ability is one of the main challenges in the stem cell research community. To approach the problems associated with organelle/small molecule delivery and intracellular manipulations of live, fragile federally-approved embryonic stem cells, they propose to develop a novel cell surgery device. This device integrates conventional microcapillary techniques with plasmonic photothermal technologies to precisely control nanoscale cell membrane damage near the tip of a microcapillary pipette. This fine control is realized byutilizing the unique photothermal effect of metal nanoparticles or thin films coated on the tip of microcapillary pipettes, which can therefore utilize a larger bore pipette diameter for efficient and non-shearing transfer of larger items such as mitochondria into somatic and stem cells.