Scientists find three ways to turn human cells into lasers

A team of researchers at Harvard Medical School has developed three different ways to turn individual cells into lasers that can emit light when stimulated.

Turns human cells into lasers

According to New Scientist, the team has demonstrated that human skin can be exploited to emit light.

Picture 1 of Scientists find three ways to turn human cells into lasers

In the initial test, researchers injected small drops of oil, adding fluorescent dyes to human skin cells. When stimulated by the light source into the droplets, scientists discovered tahasy fluorescence dye emitting a beam of laser focused light.

In a second experiment, scientists were able to provide polystyrene particles about 10 microns in size for macrophages (a kind of white blood cell). They then proceeded to stimulate the cells and obtained the same results.

Picture 2 of Scientists find three ways to turn human cells into lasers

And in the final test, the team even observed that residual oil droplets in the cell could be used up. On pig skin tests, when light is used to stimulate cells that contain fluorescent dyes, the results show no difference.

The results of the tests have been reported by scientists in the journal Nature Photonics and Nano Letters earlier this week.

The applicability of this study is expected by researchers to help track and monitor tumor cells and find out how immune cells respond to inflammation and metastasis to affected organs. Other influences. In addition, the team hopes to be able to use this technique to study the early development of complex organisms.