Nano Robots for Cellular Auscultation

Auscultations have been an important medical diagnostic method since the invention of the stethoscope more than 200 years ago. A stethoscope measures the mechanical vibrations or sounds generated by organs such as the heart and lungs, or by a fetus. Auscultations are convenient, of low cost to perform, and widely used around the world. However, in the 21st century, clinical diagnostic and medical research has gone far beyond the organ level. Information and markers at the cellular and molecular levels have been used in diagnostics and investigations. Cellular-level bio markers are the physical/chemical quantities that directly relate to the physiological conditions and biological activities of the cell and can be observed/measured in investigations. However, most cellular bio markers rely on fluorescence imaging and genetic/proteomic analysis, which are destructive to measure and cannot be identified in-situ. Recently, cell mechanical markers such as cell stiffness, elasticity, and vibration have attracted wide attention, due to the convenience of measurement, the fact that they are nondestructive, and that they can be identified in-situ. The question is whether new auscultation technology can be developed to measure cell vibration that can be used as a bio marker to identify the physiological conditions and actions of cells. The major objectives of this proposed project include developing an AFM-based nano robotic manipulator to perform in-situ cellular auscultation, developing a machine learning method based on our newly proposed generative adversarial tri-model (GAT) to recognize/understand cell physiological conditions and actions such as the differentiations and potency of stem cells, and experimentally implement and test cellular auscultations using a nano robotic manipulator. A multidisciplinary research team from engineering and medicine will carry out the proposed project.