Nanoknives To Be Used to Cut Cells

Roland Piquepaille writes "American researchers have built a carbon nanotube knife. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), this nanoknife will be used to cut and study cells. With this new tool, scientists and biologists will be able to make 3D images of cells and tissues for electron tomography, which requires samples less than 300 nanometers thick. And as cells are usually stored in wax for dissection, the researchers plan to test their nanoknives on a block of wax later this year. But read more for additional references and a picture of this nanoknife."

Comments

That is so cool...

[__aaclcg7560]

I just can't wait for the Rachel Ray version.

How hard is it to wrap a carbon nanotube?

[Josh Lindenmuth]

From the article:

It doesn't seem that this tool will be available before a while. The researchers have "found that the welds were the weakest point of the nanoknife, and they are now experimenting with alternative welding techniques."

Wouldn't it be better to wrap or tie the carbon nanotube to a specially shaped tungsten needles rather than trying to weld them? Given the small size, welding directly to the needles seems like it could never work ... better to rely on the strength of the nanotube than on the adhesive capacity of some other material.

Re:How hard is it to wrap a carbon nanotube?

[imsabbel]

Friction on atomar level isnt what you are used to.

Trying to tie or wrap those nanotypes would be more than futile.

Re:How hard is it to wrap a carbon nanotube?

[EvanED]

Trying to tie or wrap those nanotypes would be more than futile.

So what you're saying is that friction's resistance would be useless?

That's not a nanoknife, *this* is a nanoknife...

[Channard]

Still, I guess I'd feel safer being thretened by one of these than a normal knife.. 'Give me all your money, or I'll cut the top layer of dead skins cells off your throat!'

If it's so thin

[TubeSteak]

Will getting "cut" by it make you bleed?
Will it even trigger your nerves?

Re:If it's so thin

[hmccabe]

That would depend on where you got cut. If they took off some surface cells, probably not, but if a long one cut you in half I bet you'd notice.

Re:If it's so thin

[NanoProf]

That's an interesting question- the thinnest possible nanotube knife, a single single-walled nanotube, is about 1 nanometer wide. I could imagine that a living cell membrane would self-heal as a nanotube knife passes through it, since the cell membrane is a dynamic fluctuating entity. Bigger problems would be created with the knife hit a large, covalently bound molecule, or a macromolecular assembly held together by strong non-bonded interactions (muscle fiber, microtubule, bone, extracellular matrix of various kinds). I'd think that many of those things wouldn't self-heal very well, but it's not totally obvious to me that the damage pathway would be wide enough that slowly passing a nanotube knife through say, an arm would make it fall off, or prevent it from healing back together over time. If I had to bet, I'd say yes, it would either fall off or end up attached so tenuously that it dies and falls off later, but who knows... (one problem is that a single nanotube is most likely not strong enough to slice through an entire arm)

And if you call within the next 15 minutes

[Henry 2.0]

The NanoFork will be yours, absolutely free!

I've already seen that

[macadamia_harold]

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), this nanoknife will be used to cut and study cells.

I saw my first nano knife when I brought my nano on the subway in New York. The guy took my wallet, too.

Re:How long before

[kimvette]

Meh. Nevermind. This isn't the centuries-old steel knife with embedded nanotube structures. My bad, for posting before RTFA. *hangs head in shame*

But Wait: There's More!

[M0b1u5]

That's all wel and good - but where is my Carbon-Monofilament garotting tool?

It'll be great, I can see the adverts now:

"See! New Nanoknife will cut straight through this small meteorite, and then through this tomato! But wait, there's more! If you call in the next 15 minutes we'll also include the amazing NanoJuicer, and a second Nanoknife for free. And as a bonus for the first 100 callers today, you'll also recieve this fabulous set of nano-forks..."

Size scales

[SiliconEntity]

It's easy to get sizes mixed up. Nanometers, microns, angstroms, they all sound about the same.

300 nanometers is a third of a micron. Cells vary greatly in size and shape but a ballpark figure for human cells is 20 microns. So we're not talking about something that is all that "sharp" compared to the size of the object it aims to cut.

Re:Size scales

[wall0159]

The 300 nm refers to the typical desired thickness of a slice of tissue. TFA states that typical glass knives need to be relatively thick to be strong enough, causing the sample to bend as it is being sliced.

Conversely, the nano knife consists of a single carbon nanotube, stretched between two brackets. This is not a 'blade' in the traditional sense of the word, but is more akin to a cheese knife that is a wire under tension.

Wikipedia states that the diameter of a carbon nanotube is in the order of a few nanometers.

Re:Obligatory

[cyfer2000]

Actually they did. The art of cutting thin slice is called microtomy. Glass knife and diamond knife are used for microtomy. The advantage of glass knife is cost, the glass cost almost nothing. But glass knife doesn't last long, it gets blunt after 20 or 30 cuts. Also glass knife become blunt even you do nothing with it because glass is essentially fluid and the sharp edge has huge surface tension. Diamond knife lasts forever if you don't do anything wrong with it. But the diamond knife is pricey, a single knife can cost several thousand of dollars.

I have been doing microtoming for years. But I don't see how could this can be used to replace diamond knife. Basically we need to trim the sample to 0.1x0.25mm block and cut the block. This is small but still 100um. I at least need a knife of 150um wide to work on this. Nanotubes as long as 150um are not so well available at least for now. Then the knife is a 150um long 10nm thin wire, which I can not see with my eyes. How do I know the wire is stretched? And if it is stretched, during the cutting, the temperature and change from room temperature to -90 degree C. So how do I handle the thermal expansion? Also the problem troubled me mostly is how do I handle the section? When I am using a glass or diamond knife, the section and block fall to different sides of the knife, then I can use special tools to pick the section up. But when the wire cut through the sample, the section sticks back to the block. Also how much the wire knife cost and how long it can last? I can resharpen a 3mm diamond knife for $1500 after I made enough mistakes on it, which can be 5 or 10 years.

However, I really think this thing can be used as a wire saw to make MEMs.

Re:Not enough 'nano' prefixes

[cyfer2000]

Depends on the size of the molecule you are referring, "molecular scale" can be ranged Angstrom to hundreds of micron.

Were none of the researchers ever boy scouts?

[lindseyp]

If the nanotube itself is the strongest part of the system why weaken it by welding it to the tungsten?

If they can manipulate objects at such a scale, They would surely get much better results by tying the nanotube to suitably shaped anchors.

Off the top of my head, a bowline would be a good start, I'm sure some slashdot sailor could suggest a loop knot or hitch more suitable for a slippery line.

easy solution

[EraserMouseMan]

All they really need to do is cut a nano-width-slot in each side of those tungsten prongs (creating a two-pronged fork on each prong). Then create a nano-axel by welding a small bead to each end of the nano-tube cutter (each bead being larger than the width between the fork prongs). Slide the nano-axel between the two tungsten forks. Pinch the ends of the forks together. Bingo! The nano-cheese-cutter can bend as much as it needs to and there are no fixed points to break.

Hmmm....

[teebob21]

Is this something we should be keeping away from nano-emo kids?

Re:Bypass Roland

[Plutonite]

Sorry..please ignore. He actually posted the link this time so you don't have to go through the blog.

And in other news

[EZLeeAmused]

Nano shiv used to cut out of a cell.

The basics

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea here is that the carbon nanotube may be able to replace the diamond or glass knives typically used for cutting biological specimens which have been embedded in a cured plastic resin. The knife and the sample to be cut are mounted on an ultramicrotome and then sectioned at 50-90nm increments.

TFA states that the carbon nanoknife has yet to be tested cutting anything, so it's unclear to me the extent to which it could be used to replace a diamond knife. Also, a diamond or glass knife edge can be millimeters long, whereas this nanotube thread looks much shorter.

Re:Not surprised...

[MSBob]

Yeah, with all the recent announcements it's pretty hard to disregard Kurzweil's predictions. I was very sceptical of his claims until I realized that his timeline appears to be dead on so far.

Wow, this is just so high-tech!

[cciRRus]

I'm amazed by this cutting-edge breakthrough!