Weighing up cells

摘要

How much does a cell weigh? US chemists are using miniature cantilevers to find out.rn'Cell mass is directly related to cell growth and division,' says Rashid Bashir at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In an effort to understand this relationship, Bashir and colleagues have designed a device to measure a cell's mass as it grows in fluid.rnThe device contains an array of cantilevers overhanging microfluidic channels. As cell suspensions flow through the channels, cells can be captured on the cantilevers using alternating electric fields. As the cells grow, their change in mass is calculated from the change in the cantilever resonance frequency.