Automated cell stiffness measurement with two-fingered microhand using micro force sensor

Abstract

Recently, with the development of life sciences, measurement of cell characteristics have been carried out to evaluate cells. As one example of these characteristics, cell stiffness has attracted attention. It is known that cell stiffness changes depending on the status of the cell. Thus, stiffness measurement is said to be one of the important indices to evaluate a cell. However, since measuring cell stiffness requires manipulating micron order scale cells and measuring nano order forces, cell stiffness has not been extensively researched. In previous studies, a cell stiffness measurement system using a two-fingered microhand with a micro force sensor has been proposed. In this research, cell stiffness is measured using the reaction force while the target object is deforming. Also, in the previous method, it was necessary to grasp the target object manually for measuring cell stiffness, and manual grasping leads to errors in the stiffness measurement. In this paper, an automated stiffness measurement combining force data and image data is introduced. By using this system, an automated and high-precision cell stiffness measurement is realized.