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Scott ManalisBiosketchPh.D. in Applied Physics • 1998 Stanford University The Manalis laboratory applies standard silicon microfabrication principles to develop quantitative and real-time measurement techniques for detecting biomolecules and analyzing single cells. Research summaryHow cells grow in size is a complex problem. Size arises from an interplay between cell growth (the accumulation of mass) and cell division (the partitioning of this mass), but the relationship between cell growth and division is not well characterized. Progress in understanding cell growth and cell size control has been hampered by the lack of sufficiently precise, single-cell measurements. We have recently developed a technology that can measure the mass of a mammalian cell with femtogram resolution to a precision of 0.01%. This approach, called the suspended microchannel resonator (SMR), measures particles in real-time as they flow through a hollow cantilever. The SMR solves the problem of signal degradation from viscous drag by placing the fluid inside the resonator instead of immersing the resonator in the fluid. We are currently exploring a wide range of biological applications with the SMR. For example, we can now investigate how cell growth relates to progression through the cell cycle, and whether the response of cancer cells to therapeutics is associated with subtle changes in growth. We are also interested in developing various methods to use SMR for monitoring fluorescence and cell mass simultaneously in order to correlate the abundance of biomolecules (e.g., cell division cycle proteins or DNA) with a physiological measurement (e.g., cell mass or density). Ultimately, we envision that such approaches could be used to quantify dynamic processes related to cell growth, survival, division, and response to external stimuli. |
