Shedding light on single cells

Berkeley Lights Inc. has created optical tweezers that can precisely control the position of single cells in culture, and can be used for real-time assessment of activity in those cells. The company thinks its technology could help biotechs identify cell lines that secrete high levels of biologics for use in production, and wants to use new partnering collaborations to expand the platform to clinical applications.

Last week, Berkeley Lights disclosed details of its OptoSelect platform, which uses a photoelectric array to move single cells on a microchip grid while simultaneously culturing, imaging and analyzing the phenotype of the cells...