Dr Oscar Ces
Co-Chair of the Institute of Chemical Biology, Imperial College London
Director of the Institute of Chemical Biology Centre for Doctoral Training, Imperial College London
We have developed a generic platform to undertake the analysis of protein copy number from single cells. The approach described here is ‘all-optical’ whereby single cells are manipulated into separate analysis chambers using an optical trap; single cells are lysed by a shock wave caused by laser-induced microcavitation, and the protein released from a single cell is measured by total internal reflection microscopy as it is bound to micro-printed antibody spots within the device. This technology has been extended to incorporate addressable droplet microarrays so as to achieve miniaturised reduced volume-high sensitivity single cell analysis simply and cheaply using only an array printer. In addition, we have developed Smart Droplet Microtools (SDMs), oil micro-droplets coated with amphiphilic monolayers that are manipulated using optical traps in microfluidic environment that enable us to perform biopsies on the cellular scale.
The second half of the talk will cover novel microfluidic strategies we have developed for implementing the bottom-up construction of artificial cells, from user defined 3-D networks of droplet interface bilayers through to microfluidic reactors for synthetic biology and compartmentalised vesicles.