Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 17: Poster Session II

BP 17.47: Poster

Dienstag, 18. März 2025, 18:00–20:30, P4

Investigating Particle Binding above Epithelial Cells with Photonic Force Microscopy — Nils le Coutre and •Alexander Rohrbach — IMTEK, Department for Microsystems Engineering, Freiburg, Germany

A significant portion of today's airborne particulates originates from human activities such as industrial processes and the combustion of crude oil-based fuels. This has been linked to an increased risk of diseases including asthma, lung cancer, and cardiovascular pathologies, correlating significantly with the inhalation of particulate matter. Here, we investigate the fluctuation-based interaction of single optically trapped particles with epithelial cells. Using photonic force microscopy, we trap the particles through a layer of epithelial cells and interferometrically track the thermal motions of the particle with the goal to recover binding and friction parameters in contact with the cell surface. This approach is challenging since the cell perturbs the phase of the trapping and tracking beam, such that the characteristic trajectories - obtained by interference and encoding the interactions - require a novel analysis method.

Keywords: optical trapping; interferometric tracking; particle binding; epithelial cells