It was a full house on Friday, Oct. 16 for the presentation by Harvard University professor and Dean of Applied Physics, Eric Mazur, as part of the McMichael Colloquium Series. Dr. Mazur presented his biophysics work on the use of lasers to ablate and explore the functions of subcellular structures.
McMichael Colloquium: “Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery”
Abstract: 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 neurons with a precision that was not achievable before.
