White light takes hold in biology

World-first studies are underway at the University of St Andrews, exploring how a novel ‘white light’ laser could penetrate skin tissue more effectively than current laser surgery methods.

School of Physics and Astronomy researchers have been awarded £150,000 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to use white light patterns to enhance current medical and biological applications.

Professor Kishan Dholakia, who is heading up the project said, “Normally lasers emit one specific colour – think of a red or green laser pointer, or the red laser that forms supermarket scanners. White light, on the other hand, consists of all the colours we know. If we pass it through a prism, we get all the colours of the rainbow.

“With white light, we can only see interference in specific instances and it’s therefore much more accurate. Therefore, its potential use in medical and biological applications is staggering and a good example of how Scotland is leading the way in generate real results from cutting-edge laser research”.

Professor Dholakia has already made great strides in this field.

His team started out by studying how ‘optical tweezers’ (pairs of light beams) could be used to rotate chromosomes. These tweezers could manipulate one biological cell or chromosome at a time. However, his real breakthrough came by developing complex patterns of light that can sort, separate or transform many molecules or cells at once – even separating red and white blood cells.

“Because light is such a versatile tool, it should one day be possible to separate out cancerous cells from healthy ones. Drugs too could be inserted using this sort of cellular microsurgery”, he added.

Professor Wilson Sibbett is a co- investigator on the grant and Drs Tom Brown and Pascal Fischer are co-authors.

ENDS

NOTE TO EDITORS

Professor Kishan Dholakia is available on telephone 01334 463184.

Issued by Beattie Media – www.beattiegroup.com On behalf of the University of St Andrews For more information, please contact Claire Grainger, Press Officer – 01334 462530, 07730 415 015 or [email protected]; Ref: press releases/kishanapril2006 View the latest University news at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk