99 / 155
Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling
Poster Abstracts
94
99-POS
Board 50
A Platform for Fast Drug-Resistance Identification of Cancer Cells
Zishen Yan
, Yuan Lin, Tsz Hin Hui.
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong island, Hong Kong.
A major challenge in today’s cancer treatment is that patients undergoing therapy can develop
resistance to previously effective drugs. As such, finding new and faster ways to achieve drug
resistance identification of cancer cells has always been an area of great interest. Interestingly,
our recent study showed that the drug-resistance of tumor cells can be evaluated by their
membrane resealing response. Specifically, micron-sized membrane pores, introduced by
mechanical puncturing, in tumor cells can reseal ~2-3 times faster than those in the
corresponding normal cells. Furthermore, the membrane resealing time in cancer cell lines
exhibiting resistance to several leading chemotherapeutic drugs was also found to be
substantially shorter than that in their drug-sensitive counterparts. Following these interesting
findings, an electroporation-based device was designed and fabricated that allows us to introduce
membrane pores on multiple cells simultaneously and then observe their resealing via fluorescent
dyes. The efficiency and accuracy of our prototype system will be demonstrated on several lung
and nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines.