Nanosurgery with femtosecond lasers

Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at Neils Colloquium for Innovative Science, Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, IN), Friday, November 1, 2013:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
Laser-induced microexplosions: Ultrafast physics with clinical applications, at Physics Colloquium, Texas A&M University (College Station, TX), Thursday, February 18, 1999:
Recently there has been much interest in using femtosecond laser pulses in surgical applications. For example, femtosecond lasers could replace the nanosecond systems currently used for opthalmic photodisruption, providing improved surgical precision and adding versatility. In surgical applications, it is the high intensity of femtosecond laser pulses that is exploited. By tightly focusing these short pulses, the intensity becomes high enough to cause nonlinear absorption inside a transparent material (such as the vitreous humor). The absorption produces a hot plasma inside the sample that is... Read more about Laser-induced microexplosions: Ultrafast physics with clinical applications
Subcellular surgery and nanoneurosurgery, at 36th Winter Colloquium on The Physics of Quantum Electronics (Snowbird, UT), Wednesday, January 4, 2006:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanoneurosurgery
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at Physics Colloquium, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada), Friday, October 19, 2007:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
Applications of femtosecond laser ablation for nanoneurosurgery in C. elegans., at Photonics West 2007 (San Jose, CA), Saturday, January 20, 2007:
We ablate cellular material with submicrometer resolution using tightly-focused, 2-5 nJ femtosecond laser pulses. Due to the nonlinear absorption of laser light, the disruption occurs within the bulk of the sample without incision. The low energy of the pulses minimizes collateral damage. The technique has broad applicability because any optically resolvable structure within the working distance of a high-NA objective can be disrupted. Current applications of this technique include probing cytoskeletal mechanics, imaging brain tissue, and investigating the neurobiology of the nematode worm C... Read more about Applications of femtosecond laser ablation for nanoneurosurgery in C. elegans.
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery using femtosecond laser pulses, at NATO Advanced Study Institute on Biophotonics: Spectroscopy, imaging, sensing, and manipulation, Centro Ettore Majorana (Erice, Sicily), Tuesday, July 7, 2009:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery using femtosecond laser pulses
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at Photonics West 2014 (CA), Thursday, February 6, 2014:
Gene therapy is the use of DNA as an agent to cure or slow down the progression of a disease. A crucial requirement for gene therapy is the efficient and safe introduction of genetic vectors into mammalian cells. We developed a high-efficiency, low-toxicity, spatially-selective and high-throughput transfection method using fs laser induced-plasmons on a nanostructured substrate. We specifically compare two designs of plasmonic substrates (whole pyramid arrays and tipless pyramid arrays) using FDTD simulations and microbubble experiments. We then explore the laser parameter space to optimize... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
Photodisruption in turbid tissues with ultrashort laser pulses, at Photonics West 2000 (San Jose, CA), Tuesday, January 25, 2000:
We investigate the potential of femtosecond laser pulses for photodusruptive surgery on the surface and in the bulk of turbid tissue. Human epidermis cultures, mouse skin, and pig skin were used as tissue models. We use nonlinear absorption of tightly focused 100-fs laser pulses to vaporize tissue in the focal volume. By focusing the pulse in the bulk of the skin, we can vaporize 10-µm diameter regions up to 100 µm beneath the surface with minimal damage to the surrounding tissue. This technique offers exciting possibilities for clinical dermatology applications, such as tattoo removal and... Read more about Photodisruption in turbid tissues with ultrashort laser pulses
Sub-cellular nanosurgery in live cells using ultrashort laser pulses, at Photonics West 2006 (San Jose, CA), Sunday, January 22, 2006:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to selectively disrupt the cytoskeleton of a living cell and probe its mechanical properties. The nanosurgery setup is based on a home-built two-photon microscope. To image, we use a 80-MHz, 100-pJ/pulse laser beam, which is scanned across the sample; to cut, we introduce a second, 250-kHz, 1 to 5-nJ/pulse, laser beam and locally ablate sub-cellular structures. Simultaneous cutting and imaging allows us to study immediate cellular response with several hundred-nanometer spatial and less than 500-ms time resolution.

We severed single actin bundles inside...

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Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at Baetjer Colloquium, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), Friday, November 16, 2007:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at University of Missouri St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), Wednesday, March 9, 2011:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
Sub-cellular femtosecond laser ablation, at 2005 SPIE Photonics West Conference (San Jose, CA), Wednesday, January 26, 2005:
We study the selective ablation by femtosecond laser pulses of sub-cellular structures in bovine endothelial cells, with selectively stained microtubules, actin fibers, and nuclei. The cells are placed in a custom-built inverted fluorescence microscope with a 1.4 NA oil-immersion objective. The laser used for ablation is centered at 800 nm delivering 100-fs laser pulses at a repetition rate of 1 kHz and the typical energy delivered at the sample is 1–5nJ. To determine the structural change and the size of the laser-affected area, we use transmission electron microscopy (TEM), in addition to... Read more about Sub-cellular femtosecond laser ablation
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China), Tuesday, March 27, 2007:
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery

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