CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The insurgence of newly arising, rapidly developing health threats, such as drugresistantbacteria and cancers, is one of the most urgent public-health issues of moderntimes. This menace calls for the development of sensitive and reliable diagnostictools to monitor the response of single cells to chemical or pharmaceutical stimuli.Recently, it has been demonstrated that all living organisms oscillate at a nanometricscale and that these oscillations stop as soon as the organisms die. These nanometricscale oscillations can be detected by depositing living cells onto a micro-fabricatedcantilever and by monitoring its displacements with an atomic force microscopebasedelectronics. Such devices, named nanomotion sensors, have been employed todetermine the resistance profiles of life-threatening bacteria within minutes, to evaluate,among others, the effect of chemicals on yeast, neurons, and cancer cells. Thedata obtained so far demonstrate the advantages of nanomotion sensing devices inrapidly characterizing microorganism susceptibility to pharmaceutical agents. Here,we review the key aspects of this technique, presenting its major applications. anddetailing its working protocols.