The brand new Cell Tester, engineered by SI-Heidelberg (a division of World Precision Instruments), was unveiled in Baltimore at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting. This unique muscle cell tester has been in development and field testing for three years. It represents a blending of state-of-the-art technologies, including electronics, mechanics and optics. The Cell Tester allows you to work with a single, living cell or fibre without damaging it!

The heart of the system is a tuned and paired combination of a linear actuator offering nanometer (nm) precision and a force transducer with nano Newton nN) sensitivity. Both the actuator and the sensor are equipped with a remote controlled micro grabber that firmly holds the cell. For sensitive cardio myocytes, a critically important, non-cytotoxic adhesive (MyoTAK) bonds the living tissue to the micro grabbers.

The Cell Tester can, without any changes, be used for one single living cell, for a small, multi-cellular preparation and for single or larger skinned muscle strip preparations. Translational experiments from the single living cells to the intact multi-cellular level can be accomplished. For example, using the Cell Tester, the influence of the connective tissue on muscle function can be distinguished from the clean muscle work for the first time. Conversely, skinning allows a direct comparison between the living cell response and a cell, whereby the subcellular contractile proteins are studied with full experimental access to cell signalling and cellular biochemistry.

The system was used in the recently published Science paper,

Prosser, Ward & Lederer, X-ROS Signaling: Rapid Mechano-Chemo Transduction in Heart, Science 9 September 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6048 pp. 1440-1445

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