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Diamond in the rough: Research could help better detect, target cancer cells

Diamond in the rough: Research could help better detect, target cancer cells

Research doesn鈥檛 always go as planned, and sometimes results can appear to be abnormal. Some professors, like听Xiaoyun Ding, see this as an opportunity to achieve the next big discovery.听

Ding, an associate professor in the听Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, leads the听Biomedical Microfluidics Laboratory (BMMLab) at 兔子先生传媒文化作品. His team stumbled across an interesting anomaly during a cell sensing project that used different forms of acoustic waves to measure cell mechanics.

Associate Professor Xiaoyun Ding and his lab group at dinner

Associate Professor Xiaoyun Ding (right) and his lab group during summer 2024.

When using a surface acoustic wave to rearrange DNA particles, Yu Gao, a research associate in Ding鈥檚 group, managed to assemble the particles in a diamond shape. This type of shape assembly has never been observed before in a microfluidic environment using acoustic waves.听

But what did it mean?

鈥淣ormally, acoustic wave patterns resemble a kind of circular-shaped aggregation of particles,鈥 said Ding, also a faculty member in听biomedical engineering. 鈥淎fter seeing this pattern, though, we had a feeling it could be a completely new wave mode that is contributing to this phenomenon.

鈥淪o we reached out to our collaborators Thomas Voglhuber-Brunnmaier and Bernhard Jakoby in Austria. They helped us model our experiment. Sure enough, their results matched our initial observation.鈥

According to Ding, the newly discovered wave mode has a few unique traits compared to the traditional acoustic wave modes used in acoustic tweezer research. First, it contains a horizontal polarization, allowing the wave to move sideways along the interface rather than oscillating across a vertical plane.听

The wave mode can also apply electric force to a particle or cell, instead of standard acoustic force. He says being able to configure the various wave modes and switch between them on demand can lead to even more major breakthroughs when studying cell mechanics or cell manipulation.

鈥淚 always tell my students: in both research and life, you will see something you don鈥檛 expect,鈥 Ding said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not called failure. The result that you do not expect could be an opportunity.鈥

鈥淐ells with different properties, like cancer cells, respond differently to electric force,鈥 Ding said. 鈥淢anipulating the electric field will allow us to separate these cells with more sensitivity and accuracy. We鈥檒l be able to detect more of their properties and study their mechanics more efficiently.

鈥淏efore this discovery, there was no intrinsic control over generating acoustic force or electric force. Now, we can selectively generate these different wave modes and apply different forces simply by changing the frequency.鈥

The research conducted by Ding and his colleagues, titled 鈥,鈥 has been published by听Physical Review Letters.听Professor Massimo Ruzzene is also a co-author of the paper.

Their work serves as another example of interdisciplinary collaboration, a common theme in the听College of Engineering and Applied Science.

鈥淥ur group is actively working with people in the medical and biology fields. They tell us their problems, and we try to develop technology that can solve those problems,鈥 said Ding. 鈥淲e take on their issues, and we try to make their lives easier.鈥

But Ding says the BMMLab atmosphere isn鈥檛 only focusing on biomedical problem-solving. There are other lessons to be learned that go far beyond the laboratory.听

鈥淚 always tell my students: in both research and life, you will see something you don鈥檛 expect,鈥 Ding said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not called failure. The result that you do not expect could be an opportunity.鈥