A nanoscale thermocouple on a micromachined cantilever for intracellular temperature measurements

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An award is made to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to develop an instrument for subcellular temperature measurements that offers high spatial and temporal resolution. This enabling instrumentation will aid in addressing basic scientific questions helping researchers derive significant new knowledge. The instrumentation will be able to uniquely provide reliable temperature measurements on the surface and inside single cells with nanoscale resolution and microseconds response time. The instrumentation will be compatible with atomic force microscopes (AFMs) that offer exquisite force detection, spatial control, and ability for fluorescence imaging. The devices will be made available to outside groups. Results and designs will be disseminated thought peer reviewed publications, conferences, websites, and online video publications. Commercialization partnerships have been established to bring this instrumentation to market once it is fully developed. Educational outreach programs to expose youths from minority and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to science include an undergraduate summer internship program and a monthly high school hosting program with interactive demonstrations and discussions. Temperature is one of the most important physiological variables and is largely not studied at the cellular level due to lack of reliable tools. The measurement of thermal events and temperature gradients at the subcellular level are of great importance to the understanding of cell function, since many biophysical and enzymatic processes can be substantially accelerated by modest increases in temperature. This enabling instrumentation is transformative in that new knowledge will be generated by measuring temperature along with other parameters at subcellular levels. The research made possible by this new instrumentation will shed light on how localized and transient changes in temperature, evoked by physiological events as disparate as cell division and synaptic stimulation, can influence the downstream effects of those events. Better understanding of these temperature-dependent biophysical processes could lead to better understanding of normal function at the cellular and tissue levels, and diseases states. Findings and comparative studies powered by this new instrument may lead to new treatments and enable the development of targeted specialized temperature-sensitive drug delivery systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.