Graeme uses optical forces within microfluidic environments to controllable hold and manipulate living cells. Recent developments have included aimed to overcome the anisotropic nature of microscope resolution limits by accurately rotating cells held within a dual-beam optical trap, allowing the cell to be imaged from multiple directions and thus improved 3D imaging capabilities.

Schematic of Graeme's work using lasers to manipulate cell rotation

Some relevant publications:

• M Kreysing, D Ott, M Schmidberger,  O Otto, M Schürmann, E Martín-Badosa, G Whyte, J Guck. Dynamic operation of optical fibres beyond single-mode regime facilitates the orientation of biological cells. Nature Communications, 5 5481 (2014)
• T Kolb, S Albert, M Haug, G Whyte. Optofluidic rotation of living cells for single-cell tomograph., J. Biophotonics, 106 (2014)
• T Kolb, S Albert, M Haug, G Whyte, Dynamically reconfigurable Optical Spanner. Lab on a Chip, 14, 1186 (2014)