Intracellular Microlasers to Track Cancer Migration

By Sharon Smith
Tuesday, 04 August, 2015


Intracellular microlasers - or microscopic lasers introduced into the interior of live cells - could perhaps be used to track cancer cells as they move throughout the body. At least, that’s the hope thanks to a study published in Nature Photonics, which described the study of lasers tracking white blood cells through animals’ bodies for a number of days.
Optical resonators that generate a coherent beam of light have previously been too large to fit inside a cell, but the researchers behind the latest research published in Nano Letters managed to scale the core of a laser that it can fit inside of white blood cells. The so-called fluorescent whispering gallery mode (WGM) microresonators were introduced inside of cells by fooling the natural endocytosis process which lets certain molecules pass through cells walls. The target cells were then illuminated by external pulses of light, activating the microresonators that immediately responded by beaming back green laser light.
Watch the explanation below.
[embed]https://youtu.be/SHbXDlnLIYA[/embed]

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