Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Poster Abstracts

99-POS Board 50 A Platform for Fast Drug-Resistance Identification of Cancer Cells Zishen Yan , Yuan Lin, Tsz Hin Hui. The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong island, Hong Kong.

A major challenge in today’s cancer treatment is that patients undergoing therapy can develop resistance to previously effective drugs. As such, finding new and faster ways to achieve drug resistance identification of cancer cells has always been an area of great interest. Interestingly, our recent study showed that the drug-resistance of tumor cells can be evaluated by their membrane resealing response. Specifically, micron-sized membrane pores, introduced by mechanical puncturing, in tumor cells can reseal ~2-3 times faster than those in the corresponding normal cells. Furthermore, the membrane resealing time in cancer cell lines exhibiting resistance to several leading chemotherapeutic drugs was also found to be substantially shorter than that in their drug-sensitive counterparts. Following these interesting findings, an electroporation-based device was designed and fabricated that allows us to introduce membrane pores on multiple cells simultaneously and then observe their resealing via fluorescent dyes. The efficiency and accuracy of our prototype system will be demonstrated on several lung and nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines.

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