Creativity@home-Novel Tools for Single Cell Manipulation

细胞是最小的生命单位之一，由更小的成分组成，包括脂质和蛋白质，它们结合在一起执行对细胞生命至关重要的功能。脂质构成细胞膜的骨干，帮助分隔细胞膜，而蛋白质是细胞中的工人分子，制造、构建和移动物质。有趣的是，这些分子并不是孤立工作的，相反，它们经常聚集在一起执行更高阶的功能，它们在细胞中的水平随着时间和空间的变化而变化。它们会随着时间的变化而波动，以响应细胞内部和外部的刺激。不幸的是，就我们测量这些系统内部工作的能力而言，目前的技术水平是这样的，我们仍然不可能测量蛋白质水平，也不可能准确地向单个细胞（无论是表面还是亚细胞位置）输送或移除物质。该提案提出了一系列可行性研究，以试验一系列有能力解决这些技术瓶颈的新技术，从而解锁细胞的内部工作。

Cells which are amongst the smallest units of life are made up of smaller components including lipids and proteins that combine together to perform functions that are vital to the life of the cell. Lipids form the backbone of membranes that help to compartmentalize them whereas proteins are the worker molecules in cells, making, building and moving things throughout. Interestingly, these molecules do not work in isolation, instead they often come together to perform higher order functions and their levels throughout a cell vary both as a function of time and space. They fluctuate as a function of time in response to stimuli, some external and some internal to the cell. Unfortunately, the state of the art in terms of our ability to measure the inner workings of these systems is such that it is still not possible to measure the protein levels in or accurately deliver or remove material to or from a single cell (either to the surface of to a sub-cellular location). This proposal puts forwards a series of feasibility studies to trial a series of new technologies that have the ability to address these technological bottlenecks thereby unlocking the inner workings of cells.