W. Ertmer
H. Meyer
R. A. Lorbeer
G. Bergmann
C. Kraemer
H. Lubatschowski
H. M. Escobar
I. Nolte
A. Heisterkamp

Optical forces in biophotonics: transfection and cell sorting

SPIE Photonics West: OPTO
23.-28. Januar
San Francisco
2010
Type: Konferenzbeitrag
Abstract
Lately, several groups successfully used ultrashort laser pulses to selectively permeabilize the membrane of living cells to achieve transport of foreign molecules, like DNA, into the cells. For this, the high field intensities of tightly focused laser pulses are used to induce multiphoton absorption and the creation of a small scale optical breakdown at the membrane of the target cell. Afterwards, DNA or other foreign molecules are able to diffuse into the cell and achieve, for example, transfection of living cells. However, the cell throughput of this method is low, as, due to tight focusing. We present a technique to achieve fs-laser transfection in living cells at higher throughput by implementing optical traps into microfluidic chips. For this, a trapping laser beam, is coupled into a microscope setup and combined with a Ti:Sa fslaser beam to achieve simultaneous trapping and optical perforation.