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Biotech Science

Femtosecond Lasers for Nanosurgery 122

Posted by Hemos from the so-many-different-ways-to-operate dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In "Lasers operate inside single cells," Nature writes that nanosurgery can be achieved by vaporizing some components of living cells without killing the cells themselves. "With pulses of intense laser light a millionth of a billionth of a second long, US researchers are vaporizing tiny structures inside living cells without killing them. The technique could help probe how cells work, and perform super-precise surgery." This was developed by Eric Mazur of Harvard University and his colleagues. This summary contains more details and references about the process and these microexplosions. Please note that it's a very different technique from the one described six months ago in a previous Slashdot reference, Surgery with Femtosecond Lasers."
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Femtosecond Lasers for Nanosurgery More

Femtosecond Lasers for Nanosurgery

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  • Will be useful (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 )
    In the future, when there are nanoprobes of all kinds, there will probably be lots of rogue nanoprobes infesting the cells. Maybe they can be zapped out with these lasers.

  • Evolution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LordoftheFrings ( 570171 ) <null@NOsPaM.fragfest.ca> on Monday October 06, 2003 @10:16AM (#7143423) Homepage
    It has been said that evolution of cells must have been impossible, because each part of the cell is necessary for the cell to live, and thus they must have all evolved at the same time, which is highly unlikely. Perhaps this is a way to test that theory?

    • Re:Evolution (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think we'd need a time machine for that. If the separate genetic line indicates that mammalian cells have a symbiotic relationship with mitochondria, I suspect time and evolution have blurred that line. If zapping mitochondria or other cellular structures prevented cellular functioning in modern cells won't prove that in some distant past they weren't standalone.

    • Re:Evolution (Score:2, Informative)

      by azzy ( 86427 )
      I suggest you read The Blind Watchmaker [world-of-dawkins.com], that goes into such things.
      • And after The Blind Watchmaker read Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

        It was inspired by TBW and serves as a sort of second sesmeter on the same material, covering it in more depth.

        It's a supurb work and if the ideas of TBW are old hat to you you can just jump right in the deep end here.

        Also highly recommended is The Beak of the Finch which watches evolution in actual action among the Galapogos finches.

        KFG
    • You don't need the ==true in your code-sig. Chances are the pre-processor is removing it anyway so it doesn't slow your executable down, but if a big constraint is the size of your source code, you might want to drop it.
    • actually, if you think about it (as I just was) even if the cell did somehow evolve each piece by itself...how did we go from single cell creatures splitting to repoduce to 2 independant creatures requiring intense courting and a few beers to insert an object into another to creat a new life...
      Also if that just evolved..how did we know what to do?
      I never thought about it till today. Its shattering my evolution views.
      • Through "random" chance and countless numbers of cell divisions, some cells never fully split apart, but remained 'adhered' to each other. In response to a predator that ate other cells, it would be more successfull for that genotype to retain that cohesion and be less prone to being gobbled up (other single celled organisms probably cannot envelop two).

        From there, the game of numbers began.
    • Come to think of it your computer is to complex to have evolved from anything simple. Perhaps you should try and test this theory in a similar manner?

    • Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @11:10AM (#7143889)
      How can a car possibly exist? It needs all of its parts or it is not a car. All of it's parts must fit and work with each other precisely so they could not have been designed seperately.

      Do you see the fallaciousness of the argument?

      Wheels, engines, suspension systems, steering mechinisms, all "evovled" prior to cars and for functions having nothing to do with cars.

      It not necessary for a cell to spring into being as a whole entity. It is only necessary that it's basic componants can come into being and exist without the cell for some other purpose.

      As it happens any close inspection of a cell quickly reveals that it isn't a single entity but a unit made up of preexisting parts, just as is a car.

      Evolution does not build anew each orginism. It is and additive process. This is why you can make a good study of human anatomy by disecting a chicken. Things grow like an onion, accreting new layers of development atop the old.

      This idea is absolutely critical. The current state of evolution is not the paragon of some process that replaces what went before. We can examine nearly the full range of the evolutionary process because all the older forms still exist.

      Evolution does not erase its tracks. You can peel the onion.

      KFG
      • How can a car possibly exist? It needs all of its parts or it is not a car. All of it's parts must fit and work with each other precisely so they could not have been designed seperately.

        Do you see the fallaciousness of the argument?

        Do you see the fallaciousness of your counterargument? You're comparing a car, which exists because intelligent agents designed and built it, with a cell, which I'm assuming you'd say exists due to evolution. The original argument is intended to show that the evolutionary
        • I responded to the claim as framed.

          You have framed several and different claims.

          Changing the parameters of the claim and supporting that claim with a faulty analogy of your own does not constitute a refutation of my analogy.

          It isn't a wise idea to attack a man who ensconced in his own castle. It's best to catch him in the open field without his walls and retainers about him.

          By that I mean to say that you have a couple of problems, one of which is that if you wish to assail evolution you must find its we

        • Do you see the fallaciousness of your counterargument? You're comparing a car, which exists because intelligent agents designed and built it, with a cell, which I'm assuming you'd say exists due to evolution

          Excuse me? The issue is whether it would be possible for a complex system to have evolved from many less complex and distinct systems. The parent pretty showed that it can using the car analogy. What the driving force for the seperate systems to come together (whether natural selection or creation

    • Perhaps this is a way to test that theory?

      Highly, highly doubtful. Just because cell components were once independent of eachother doesn't mean that they have not become dependent on eachother. This is the way ecosystems work; you get a whole lot of different things that evolved at completely different times (plants, insects, lizards, mammals, etc.), and yet they create a balance with each other that goes totally out of whack if you screw with part of it.

      To use a much worse, but more slashdot-friendly,

    • Mutation does wonders. Do it a billion times and you are bound to get something more useful atleast once.
    • Actually, each part is and isn't necessary to life.

      Consider mitochondria, which act as the powerhouse for cells by peforming cellular respiration (that useful task of breaking down things like glucose into ATP). They seem to be more closely related to bacteria and have their own DNA and biochemical mechanisms quite apart from the whole cell.

      The theory is that mitochondria are actually prokaryotic cells that were engulfed by other procaryotic cells, creating the early eukaryotic cells. The idea is that t

    • It has been said that evolution of cells must have been impossible, because each part of the cell is necessary for the cell to live, and thus they must have all evolved at the same time, which is highly unlikely.

      There is no real mystery in this. Modern cells are composed of multiple parts that used to be able to live independently. At some point, they joined up and subsequently lost their ability to live independently.

      That's a common theme in evolution. Your body is composed of parts that are interde
  • nature does not write articles - articles are submitted for peer review from the original authors - nature is a publisher of others' work, not an original contributor to scientific journalism - same w/ science, prl, apl, etc.

    something like scientific american or pop. sci. 'dumbs down' the material for layman, but that usually comes later after the peer review journals have their fix.

    but i'm just being pedantic.
    • I just want to tell that these magazines are actually faster source than any of the literature available. It takes much less time for an article to be released in form of Nature or S.A. Articles than it is to a related journal.

      • Re:nature writes? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JDevers ( 83155 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @10:57AM (#7143770)
        Lay off the ketamine for a second and re-word that...

        For the most part, magazines such as S.A., New Scientist, etc "paraphrase" the work presented in journals such as Nature or Science. While it may take a while for something to be peer-review and printed in a journal, it isn't really considered all that trustworthy until it is.

        There are occasions where huge papers "debut" in a peer reviewed journal at the same time as a corresponding article in one of the mainstream science mags, but it was definitely the journal article which came "first."

        Of course, that may have been exactly what you said...I just couldn't understand what you were saying.
        • well maybe i was smoking crack at the moment. I meant:

          The magazines are actually faster source of information than the journals which requires long period for reviewing and rejecting articles.

          thanks for pointing out the fact that my wordings are weird & uncomprehensible... :-)
  • sounds like a good means for altering genes in the future. if they keep working at it, ya never know. i could be way off though

    • Re:genetics (Score:3, Informative)

      by Mercaptan ( 257186 )
      It's a nice thought, but even these lasers aren't precise enough to alter genes on living chromosomes.

      Mitochondria are about 5 micrometers across and your various cytoskeletal filaments and tubules range between 3 - 25 nanometers in diameter.

      Human chromosomes, on the other hand, are essentially 2 meters of DNA packed into a 5 micrometer-wide nucleus. Now that's 6 billion base pairs (A/T's and G/C's), which are wrapped up pretty tight.

      If you stretched out the DNA to full length, that's 3.4 x 10e-10 met

  • Cancer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @10:19AM (#7143455) Homepage Journal
    Hmmmmm. These techniques, combined with multispectral analysis of tissues in real time could be just the ticket for surgical resection of certain cancers(meningiomas etc....). The multispectral analysis could be combined with a robotic laser that could automatically lase the "transformed" tissues, thus selectively killing cancerous cells. Cool.

    • However, the real problem lies in the focus of the light, and how do we distinguish between well-behaving cells and carcinoma? On a cell-to-cell scale? I believe not. It would then costs millions to have a surgery getting one simple surgery done with the lasers and it would last ages.

      If you think any kind of staining/identifying can work with computers that automate the thing then you better think who is to blame if such things happened.

      • Re:Cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @10:36AM (#7143604) Homepage Journal
        However, the real problem lies in the focus of the light

        No, tuneability of lasers to specific tissues and degrees of intensity are well worked out.

        and how do we distinguish between well-behaving cells and carcinoma?

        That is the point of the multispectral (potentially) analysis. The idea is that you in real time identify characteristics in normal versus transformed cells.

        On a cell-to-cell scale?

        That was the point of this article.

        It would then costs millions to have a surgery getting one simple surgery done with the lasers and it would last ages.

        No, it could cost significantly less to have the laser surgery, could provide a better outcome, reduce the time in surgery and under anesthesia and reduce infection rates.

        If you think any kind of staining/identifying can work with computers that automate the thing then you better think who is to blame if such things happened.

        Hrmmmm. You had better look at the remote sensing community. These folks going back to the 1970's in the CIA and NRO have been using computers to automate identification of multispectral targets for almost 4 decades.

  • I'm curious as to the power draw and commercial applicability, at least in the neart term. That is, how much power would a tool like this draw, how many shots would be required to destroy, say, a gleoblastoma in a patient's brain, and exactly how precise is it? That is, how deep can it be tuned, and does it have difficulty say, affecting marrow through the bone? Nonetheless, very interesting preliminary work!
  • I don't think femtosecond is a word.

  • In "

    Femtosecond Lasers for Nanosurgery [slashdot.org]," Roland Piquepaille [weblogs.com] writes "In "Lasers operate inside single cells [nature.com]," Nature [nature.com] writes that nanosurgery...

    Sorry, but all of those double-quotes just through me for a loop there for a minute.

    How often do you see something like "In "?

  • I can now explain away the empty brain cells I got from reading Slashdot.

    "You see, I was born with too much smarts, so they had to operate to relieve the pressure.."
    *drool*

  • goodness. every now and then we acquire a technology so advanced that one may first wonder "how the hell can we implement that usefully?"
    and then i think Star Trek a second... imagine miniaturized lasers like these in a handheld device that performs automatically according to a doctor's settings.
    hehe.
  • If you can affect something inside a single cell accurately, couldn't this same technology be used to alter ink colors for super high-resolution laser printing? Like 10,000 DPI non-interpreted?
  • Nanosurgery with lasers...wow...everything just keeps getting smaller.
    Does anyone remember the Nanobots in the Red Dwarf series?
    If not, they were tiny (VERY tiny) machines that you could re-arrange atoms, so in essence they could turn dust into gold. (provided a very extra atoms were used). Just imagine if these Nanobots ever become a reality, and their implications on surgery.
    Just think...this tiny robot could not only be used for surgery, but if you gave it some kind of animal (such as a sheep), it c

  • Coincidence? I think not. (Score:4, Funny)

    by MisterSquid ( 231834 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @10:31AM (#7143564)

    This was developed by Eric Mazur of Harvard University and his colleagues.

    The MASER was the predecessor of the LASER. Though most don't know this, LASER is an acronym standing for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation." The difference is that MASERs amplify Microwaves instead of light.

    Isn't it convenient that the lead scientist on this is named just happened to be named "Mazur?" . . . Waitaminut, where'd that black helicopter come from?

    (You can get a little info about MASERs and LASERs here [earthsky.com])

  • Increase the size of my manhood and split her with my horse cock j6546@adelphia.net ????

    I mean, really...
  • millionth of a billionth of a second ??
    That sounds, like, soooo way totally not a technical term

  • Dr. BS (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @11:21AM (#7143985) Homepage
    I had a neighbor in my apartment complex who had a PhD in physics, which interested me. I asked her what she specialized in, and her reply was lasers. Even more intrigued, I asked what type of lasers and how they were used. She told me she worked in femtosecond lasers that operated at a certain wavelength invisible to the human eye. "Oh," I replied. "So you're a con artist. 'My laser is working fine. What? You didn't see anything? That's the way it's supposed to work.'" Luckily, she found that funny and explained that her lasers were actually used for some specialized chromotography. I still think she's a well-paid liar.

    • Re:Dr. BS (Score:2, Funny)

      by koreth ( 409849 ) *
      Hmm... my mom taught me not to taunt the people with the big lasers. Especially the big invisible lasers. Count yourself lucky she had a sense of humor.
      • " Hmm... my mom taught me not to taunt the people with the big lasers. Especially the big invisible lasers. Count yourself lucky she had a sense of humor."

        And count yourself lucky that she didn't have any invisible sharks on hand either.

  • On a related note. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by I'm a racist. ( 631537 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @11:22AM (#7143990) Homepage Journal
    I work with femto-second lasers. I have used them in living cells for a variety of applications. Two of which involve destroying structures inside of living cells. Of course, these structures are placed into the cells by us (injection, knock-in, electroporation, etc). It's not an extremely new technique, it's just being used in a slightly new way. Some of the similar techniques are known as uncaging [pnas.org], FRAP [davidson.edu], and more.

    Personally, I rarely find anything that groundbreakingly new in Nature. Well, that's not exactly true. There is plenty of new data, and new applications and/or refinements of old techniques. There generally aren't wholly original techniques or completely new instruments discussed in that journal. My personal preference for that sort of thing are some physics journals.

    One other thing, that may be of interest to /., semiconductor nanocrystals are starting to pop up in similar research. They are quite useful, if still hard to work with (they don't behave like most biological molecules). I got interested in quantum dots [qdots.com] about a year ago, and have done a bit of work with them, but would like to do some more (when I find the time).
  • The technique could help probe how cells work, and perform super-precise surgery

    Reminds me of the Far Side with the two doctors poking the patient's brain during surgery to watch his leg jump. "ooo, now you try. Poke right here."

  • I used to work on a biomedical project at the Univ. of Michigan involving high-speed lasers (usually femtosecond duration) as a tool to replace the larger ablative lasers used in standard refractive surgery (LASIK). The femtosecond lasers could be focused intrastromally, such that the material ablated was directly inside the cornea. Due to the relaxation of some stromal pressure, the cornea itself would reshape to a softer lens, without the huge amount of ablation required by current lasers. http://www.i
  • Please note that it's a very different technique from the one described six months ago in a previous Slashdot reference, Surgery with Femtosecond Lasers."

    ...must mean that Slashdot doesn't like it when people point out duplicate stories. The actually went out of their way to make sure everyone knows that this isn't a dupe. Now THAT's funny.

  • Finally they can examine cells without killing them. This is a great victory for cell rights activists everywhere. If you've ever heard the screams of poor innocent cells, like from that bottle of maddog the other night, you'll be able to truly appreciate the suffering these misunderstood creatures have had to endure.
  • What I want to know is, can I mount one of these on a sharks head?

  • Bad news, Mr. Jones: I'm afraid the mitochondria in the 35th from the last cell at the end of the 14th cappilary on the backside of your left pinky have to come out.

    That'll be $1500.

  • By targeted destruction of "fecal" buildup in cells, this can be used in single-celled and small multi-celled organisms to test various theories of aging (how much said buildup contributes to cell and organism death).
  • Femtosecond Microlasers Pikofor Nanosurgery (not to be confused with the article we had on MilliFemtominute Attolasers for Decisurgery last Centimonth).

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