Unusual softness or stiffness is often an indicator of the presence of cancer in what otherwise may look like healthy tissue. There are already devices on the market that feel how elastic a given tissue is, but they come in contact and sample a very large number of cells at once. Researchers at Duke University have developed a sensor that can quickly deduce the stiffness of individual cells in a sample without actually squeezing them.
The trick lies in identifying what makes one cell stiffer than another, and measuring those parameters using lasers and a camera. Turns out that the amount of structural order within the cell is proportional to its stiffness, so simply shining a laser through the cells and measuring how the refractive index of the light changes is indicative of the cell’s interior order and therefore its overall stiffness.
The researchers demonstrated the viability of this technique by measuring the stiffness of five different types of cancer cells and comparing the readings using slower, more conventional techniques that showed a high level of correlation
Study in Biophysical Journal: Optical Phase Measurements of Disorder Strength Link Microstructure to Cell Stiffness…
Via: Duke…