Robotic Magnetic Needle Characterization of Single Nanoparticle Uptake in Cells

A deep understanding of cell uptake mechanism of nanoparticles is extremely important for disease diagnosis and treatment. Current methods are often statistical in nature, and do not characterize the specific interactions between the nanoparticles and the cells. Consequently, a quantitative understanding of the actual uptake process is often lacking and hard to achieve. In this project, we aim to quantitatively study the nanoparticle uptake process in cells by analyzing the motion of different type of magnetic nanoparticles under different force profiles. This novel and unique approach will help to understand how the different surface chemistries and functionalization of the nanoparticles affect the nanoparticle-cell internalization process, from a totally new perspective, not studied before. This will have a great impact in the future design of nanoparticles for biomedical applications.