Master defence: Trine Berthing

"Interfacing mammalian cells with vertical arrays of inorganic nanowires"

Abstract

It is of great interest for fundamental cell biology and for the development of improved cell-based drug screening assays, to gain spatial and temporal information on intracellular processes. To achieve this it is required to place a probe directly in the interior of living cells, which presents several challenges due to their micron size and complexity of the cytoplasm and the cell membrane.

Nanotechnology offers the possibility of fabricating one-dimensional nanostructures of various materials, which have recently been shown to be able to penetrate the cell membrane without causing significant damage.

This master thesis defense presents the work done on interfacing mammalian cells with vertical arrays of inorganicnanowires (NWs). Two complementary interfacing approaches are developed and compared with respect to their ability of bringing NWs in contact with the interior of cells and their effect on cell viability. The results include cross-section images of living cells with embedded NWs and scanning electron micrographs providing information on the interaction between NWs and cells. The viability of cells is shown not to be impaired even after 48 hours presence of NWs.

The work provides a solid argument for expanding the investigation of vertical arrays of inorganic NWs as intracellular probes.