The latest news from academia, regulators research labs and
other things of interest Posted: Feb 2nd, 2013 Listening to
cells: Scientists probe human cells with high-frequency sound
(Nanowerk News) Sound waves are widely used in medical imaging,
such as when doctors take an ultrasound of a developing fetus.
Now scientists have developed a way to use sound to probe tissue
on a much tinier scale. Researchers from the University of
Bordeaux in France deployed high-frequency sound waves to test
the stiffness and viscosity of the nuclei of individual human
cells. The scientists predict that the probe could eventually
help answer questions such as how cells adhere to medical
implants and why healthy cells turn cancerous. "We have
developed a new non-contact, non-invasive tool to measure the
mechanical properties of cells at the sub-cell scale," says
Bertrand Audoin, a professor in the mechanics laboratory at the
University of Bordeaux. "This can be useful to follow cell
activity or identify cell disease." The work