Immune cells follow the light

Engineers are following immune cells to see how they behave when they chase down bacteria in the human body.

The team led by Yale University has discovered a way to create artificial chemical trails and control them. By manipulating the chemical trails, the team were able to control the movements of immune cells in the blood and study how they respond to bacteria.

The team used sponge-like microparticles that mimicked bacteria by slowly releasing a characteristic bacterial ‘scent.’ They then moved these microparticles using focused beams of light to control the pattern of released chemicals over space and time, stimulating the immune cells to respond.

“By fusing recent advances in optical and materials science, we’ve developed a new approach to control chemical microenvironments with light,” said Eric Dufresne, who developed the holographic optical tweezers – the underlying technology used to manipulate the microparticles – in the late 1990s. “Until now, people have used optical tweezers to move physical objects. We’ve demonstrated that they can also be used to manipulate chemical gradients.”

Led by Dufresne, the John J. Lee Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Holger Kress, a postdoctoral associate in the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, the team used two different chemicals – one to attract the cells and the other to repel them to demonstrate how they could direct immune cells along a path – either towards or away from microparticles.

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