Final Report Summary - DIDYMUS (MICROMACHINED OPTOMECHANICAL DEVICES: looking at cells, tissues, and organs ... with a gentle touch.)
This project has used a unique technological platform, that goes under the name of ferrule-top technology, to accomplish two main goals: the development of new instruments for scientific and industrial applications, and the creation of new knowledge in certain research areas by means of those instruments. In terms of new instruments, we have delivered a machine that can measure how soft, hard, elastic, or viscous a material is, while looking at how the material reacts to a mechanical compression with different microscopy techniques; on a different topic, we have developed a new gas sensor that can be applied, for instance, to measure the gas generated during a discharge in a transformer, or to detect leaks of methane in gas wells. From a more research based perspective, we have used the first of these two instruments to better understand the relation between certain biological features of living matter and their behavior. We have for example found that brain tissue can be softer in some regions of the brain than in others; we have analyzed the mechanical features of a developing chicken embryo; and we have looked at how the retina responds, electrically, to a mechanical compression. The combination of these two approaches (instrument development and application to answer specific research questions) offer the opportunity to advance the technological frontiers while looking at how the new technology introduced can eventually reach our society.