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，它们联合收割机一起执行对细胞生命至关重要的功能。脂质形成了细胞膜的骨架，帮助细胞进行区室化，而蛋白质则是细胞中的工人分子，在细胞中制造、建造和移动东西。有趣的是，这些分子并不是孤立地工作，相反，它们经常聚集在一起执行更高级的功能，并且它们在整个细胞中的水平随着时间和空间的变化而变化。它们作为时间的函数波动，以响应刺激，一些外部和一些内部的细胞。不幸的是，就我们测量这些系统的内部工作的能力而言，现有技术仍然不可能测量单个细胞中的蛋白质水平或准确地将材料递送到单个细胞或从单个细胞中移除材料（递送到表面或亚细胞位置）。该提案提出了一系列可行性研究，以尝试一系列新技术，这些新技术能够解决这些技术瓶颈，从而解锁细胞的内部运作。

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.