Laser manipulation of cells and tissue

Our lab is constructing photonic systems to seek correlates between cell signaling and laser-induced mechanical stresses as well as laser-based measurements of deformation and mechanical properties in engineered tissues. Our lab is working on parallelizing our experiments through the use of holographic optical tweezers. Using video based feedback as well as position sensitive diode feedback we are updating our laser tweezers polarization as well as 3D positions in order to clamp or dynamically update forces and torques. This system, still in development, will enable higher throughput testing of our labs central hypotheses in the area of vascular regulation, mechanotransduction, and tissue engineering.