[MOS] October 21, 2008

[Zina Queen]

Seminar on
Modern Optics and Spectroscopy

On-chip femtosecond neurosurgery

M. Fatih Yanik, MIT

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

In recent years, the advantages of using small invertebrate animals 
as model systems for human diseases have become increasingly 
apparent, and have resulted in two Nobel Prizes in Physiology and 
Medicine in 2002 and 2006 for the discoveries made in the nematode C. 
elegans. The availability of a wide array of species-specific genetic 
techniques, along with the animal's transparency, and its ability to 
grow in minute volumes make C. elegans an extremely versatile model 
organism. However, since the first studies in the early 1960s, little 
has changed in how scientists manipulate this multi-cellular 
organism. As a result, neural regeneration and in vivo 
high-throughput screens at cellular or sub-cellular resolution could 
not be performed. We present key technologies for complex 
high-throughput whole-animal genetic and drug screens at sub-cellular 
resolution using femtosecond laser technology and microfluidics. We 
demonstrate high-speed microfluidic sorters, which isolate and 
immobilize single awake animals in well-defined geometries for 
high-throughput in vivo imaging and surgery of phenotypic features at 
sub-cellular resolution using femtosecond lasers. We show integrated 
chips containing multiple addressable incubation chambers for 
exposure of individual animals to biochemical compounds and 
high-resolution time-lapse imaging of many animals on a single chip 
without the need for anesthesia. We show devices for delivery of 
compound libraries in standard multi-well plates to microfluidic 
devices and also for rapid dispensing of screened animals into 
multi-well plates. These technologies allow various types of 
high-throughput in vivo assays on small-animals at sub-cellular 
resolution including mutagenesis, RNAi and compound screens, as well 
as high-throughput in vivo neural degeneration and regeneration 
studies.


Grier Room, MIT Bldg 34-401
Refreshments served after the lecture
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