Optical Tweezers – Red Blood Cell and Bead Manipulation

In this video a red blood cell is pinned down to the petri dish floor by two traps while a third one is used to stretch the cell membrane.
With the ‘Multiplexing’ feature three time-shared traps are generated. While two of the time shared traps pin down the red blood cell onto the surface, a third trap with an amine-modified bead in it pulls at the cell membrane. In this way an external stress is applied onto the membrane. All of the deformation is done without destroying the cell.