Plasmonic Photothermal Surgery on Fragile Living Cells

本提案旨在开发一种活的、单细胞的体细胞和干细胞手术工具，以实现高效的细胞内操作，如传递小分子、大分子结构和线粒体等细胞器。长期目标是提高干细胞生物学的能力，修复因先天性功能障碍、衰老或疾病的肆虐而受损或磨损的组织，如艾滋病毒/艾滋病、癌症、糖尿病和动脉粥样硬化。发展这种能力是干细胞研究界面临的主要挑战之一。为了探讨与细胞器/小分子输送和联邦政府批准的活的、脆弱的胚胎干细胞的细胞内操作相关的问题，他们提议开发一种新的细胞手术设备。该装置结合了传统的微毛细管技术和等离子体光热技术，可以精确地控制微毛细管顶端附近的纳米级细胞膜的损伤。这种精细的控制是通过利用覆盖在微毛细管顶端的金属纳米颗粒或薄膜的独特光热效应来实现的，因此可以利用更大的吸管直径来高效和非剪切地将较大的物品如线粒体转移到体细胞和干细胞中。

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.