Acoustic waves can monitor stiffness of living cells
MIT engineers have devised a new, noninvasive way to measure the stiffness of living cells using acoustic waves. Their technique allows them to monitor single cells over several generations and investigate how stiffness changes as cells go through the cell division cycle. This approach could also be used to study other biological phenomena such as programmed cell death or metastasis, the researchers say. “Noninvasive monitoring of single-cell mechanical properties could be useful for studying many different types of cellular processes,” says Scott Manalis, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the MIT departments of Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the study. It could also be useful for analyzing how patients’ tumor cells respond to certain drugs, potentially helping doctors choose the best drugs for individual patients, the researchers say. Joon Ho Kang, an MIT graduate student, is the first...