In an effort to combine sophisticated laser and Internet technologies, scientists in Australia have successfully performed laser surgery and "optical trapping" in a Southern California laboratory via the Internet.
The scientists used a new Internet-based laser scissor-and-tweezers technology called RoboLase, demonstrating the potential of using the technology for real-time research activities between laboratories and for physicians to perform medical procedures from distant locations.
In a proof-of-principle series of experiments, the scientists from UC Irvine, UC San Diego and the University of Queensland employed RoboLase to produce surgical holes in a distinct pattern of less than one micron in diameter (1/1000th of a millimeter) in single cells. Utilizing a control panel projected onto a computer screen, Queensland researchers were able to remotely perform the cell surgery on a laser microscope system in the Southern California laboratory.
"The speed and precision of the sub-cellular surgery was equal to what it would be like if we were doing the same surgery in our labs here in California," said Michael Berns, professor of biomedical engineering at UCI and adjunct professor of bioengineering at UCSD, who led the development of the RoboLase technology.
In addition, the scientists were able to grab onto -- or "optically trap" -- swimming sperm in the California lab by operating optical-laser tweezers remotely from Australia. This was a particularly noteworthy accomplishment, because it demonstrated the amount of computer bandwidth (1 gigabyte/second) needed by the Australia and California research groups to observe and grab a fast-moving sperm with virtually no detectible delay in image transmission between the two laboratories.