Abstract

Micro-processing Tools for Cells and Worms

Xavier Casadevall i Solvas, Senior Scientist, Imperial College London

The ability to perform experimentation on single organisms (either cells or small multicellular animals) is of extreme importance in biology. C. elegans nematodes, for example, are very powerful model organisms in which processes such as apoptosis, stochastic gene expression, organogenesis and ageing can be studied simply and economically. Unfortunately, experimentation on these organisms is difficult due to their small dimensions, particularly if large enough throughputs are sought at the single individual level. Here I will present a set of microengineered tools that enable experimentation with these organisms to levels not attainable before, including animal immobilization for long-term germ-cell imaging in apoptosis and organogenesis studies, the age-synchronization of large amounts of adult worms for ageing studies and the efficient sorting of these worms according to multiple levels of gene expression for stochasticity studies. Furthermore, I will introduce new strategies aimed at empowering research at the single cell level. These include recently developed droplet-based microfluidic tools and the study of the mechanism of particle (or cell) ordering in inertial microfluidics for controlled encapsulation in droplets.