Recently, interest in the biophysics of cells has been stimulated by evidence from many studies that external force applied to a cell generates signals that are as potent as those of biochemical stimuli for cell growth, differentiation, migration and function. Furthermore, living cells as open systems maintain their homeostasis, i.e. the internal condition necessary for physiological functioning, by exchanging substances with their environments including energy substrate, ions and water across their membrane. Consequently, the objective is to develop milli/microfluidic assays to measure biophysical properties of human cells with a multi-modality imaging system combining digital holographic microscopy and fluorescence microscopy.
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