The Sound of Cells

Alert Slashdot reader jamie pointed out a story in Smithsonian Magazine on the subject of listening to the sounds cells make in order to detect abnormalities.

Re:Other identifiers

[BaronAaron]

Someone want to explain to me why it's so hard to verify where to sound is coming from?

Move the needle off the cell. If the sound stops then you know the sound wasn't coming from the surronding fluid or the tip of the microscope.

Am I missing something?

Conformal change vibration and resonance analysis

[G4from128k]

Whenever a protein or enzyme in a cell changes shape, it should induce characteristic vibrations in the surround media. Each enzyme would emit its own characteristic vibrations when it undergoes a change in shape as it catalyzes a reaction or does its business.

For example, I'd bet nerve cells give off sounds as the propagating impulse causes cell-surfane ion channels to pop open and closed. The ion pumps that restore ion concentrations would also emit a hum with characteristic frequencies. For membrane-embedded enzymes (e.g., the channels on nerve cells), interferometry off the membrane surface might help to detect these minute vibrations. I wonder if one could even detect the sound of prions forming when a protein is warped into the misshaped conformation that characterizes conditions like BSE -- sound of a brain going mad.

I'd bet that one could also analyze protein/enzyme states with a fine-grained analysis of the sound transfer function for a cell. Depending on the physical state of each protein species and its concentration, a cell would attenuate or resonate with particular acoustic frequencies. Large cell structures (e.g. mitochondria) might also have their own characteristic acoustical modulation functions that depend on the size and membrane structure. If analyzing the transfer function for a live, wet cell is too hard, I suspect that flash-freezing the cell might create a better acoustical specimen.

peer review, peer review, peer review

[nesneros]

I'm not saying the work is bad or anything (I think it shows very novel thinking), but this hasn't been peer reviewed. This is important. Until the work has been scrutinized by experts in the field you can not tell whether or not something is statistically or scientifically significant.

No, peer review is not a perfect process, but its the best one we have. Scientists and the press need to remember this before they make claims about scientific work.

At least this article mentions the fact.