[extropy-chat] On the verge of automated cell-sorting

[Jeff Davis]

Engineers create optoelectronic tweezers to round up
cells, microparticles

http://www.eurekalert.org/pubnews.php?view=titles

"Optoelectronic tweezers can produce instant
microfluidic circuits without the need for
sophisticated microfabrication techniques." 

"Our design has a strong practical advantage in that,
unlike optical tweezers, a simple light source, such
as a light-emitting diode or halogen lamp, is powerful
enough," said Chiou, a Ph.D. student in electrical
engineering and computer sciences and lead author of
the paper. "That is about 100,000 times less intense
than the power required for optical tweezers." 

The researchers are now studying ways to combine this
technology with computer pattern recognition so that
the sorting process could be automated. "We could
design the program to separate cells by size,
luminescence, texture, fluorescent tags and basically
any characteristic that can be distinguished
visually."

Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles








		
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