Measuring the footprint of cells
The sensor is covered with 250,000 tiny plastic columns only five microns in diameter. When a cell creeps across the tips of the columns, it presses each column very slightly sideways. Credit: © Fraunhofer IFAM Even the slightest differences are important in competitive sport: To improve a ski jumper's performance, the trainer can analyze the jump very accurately using force sensors. Researchers in Jena and Bremen are planning something similar. However, their work is not with athletes but with tiny somatic cells. The experts have developed a low-cost optical sensor to measure the force with which migrating cells push themselves away from an underlying surface. Force analysis devices like these could one day help to identify specific cell types – more reliably than using a microscope or other conventional methods.