Abstract

     Non-destructive, nanoscale techniques are necessary to understand both synthetic and biological materials. As a sensing device in nanoscale dimension, the atomic force microscopy (AFM) based robot uses a force-sensing cantilever with nano-level probe to measure the topography and surface mechanical properties of materials. The label free mechanical biomarkers contribution to the investigation in cellular level and provide the stable and harmless way for pathogen and clinical researches. Besides the straightforward mechanical properties research, more comprehensive inner membrane information is still full of unknowns in the cell study. One aspect of the proposed study is to combines the focal adhesions (FAs), cytoskeleton and signaling pathway into one large system. The system communicated with extra microenvironment which could further regulate various cell behaviors such as morphologies, proliferation and migration to the mechanical biomarkers acquired by the AFM-based robot. The other aspect of the study is focus on the hardware and mathematical design of a vibration assisted AFM system. Instead of relying on the cell surface properties, the vibration signals will travel from the substrate to focal adhesions, cytosol, cytoskeleton, then cell membrane, each cell components contribute to the signals eventually acquire by the vibrated probe. The abundant information will bring a novel way to comprehensively understand the cellular behavior in the practical pathogen and clinical research.