Scientists now attach probes into a living cells, and measure electrical currents from inside.
Meet the cyborg cell. By attaching probes with nano-hairpin connectors to living cells, researchers have measured electrical currents from inside. They hope the probes will provide a useful way to monitor cells’ health.
A team at Harvard University conducted the study, which appears in Science. Though other probes can measure the currents in electrical impulse-producing cells–such as beating heart cells–none have given researchers the precision of measuring from inside. The probes designed in this study allowed researchers to successfully measure the electric pulses from cultured chicken heart cells’ beating.
One of the team’s challenges was getting the wires to kink into the hairpin shape–a difficult maneuver using traditional nanowire-making techniques. They noted if they stopped the wire as it formed, they could force it to bend.
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