Cell migration study on-chip

摘要

A device designed to monitor how cells move could help scientists understand cell migration, important in processes from embryonic development to wound healing and cancer metastasis.rnJing Cheng and colleagues at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, made the lab-on-a-chip style device which creates artificial wounds and monitors the surrounding cells as they move to heal the wound.rnWhilst wound assays are the most common way to measure cell migration rates, they are often based on optical measurements which are not quantitative and can suffer from low repeatability. The new method avoids these problems and 'the device is almost fully automated,' says Cheng.