Microsensors offer first look at whether cell mass affects growth rate
Monday, November 15, 2010 - 14:30
in Health & Medicine
Researchers are using a new kind of microsensor to answer one of the weightiest questions in biology -- the relationship between cell mass and growth rate. Each microsensor is a small, suspended platform with a resonance frequency that changes as the cells on it grow heavier. Researchers tacked individual cells' masses and divisions over time and found that the cells they studied did grow faster as they grew heavier, rather than growing at the same rate throughout the cell cycle.