Magnetic tweezers

Magnetic tweezers are great tools to apply and measure forces in biological tissues and cells. To study developmental processes in embryonal development of drosophila, we have deigned and built a novel magnetic tweezer that is easily combinable with commercial microscopes and whose forces are long-ranged, while still being in the order of more than 100 pN.

With this it is possible to exert forces directly onto superparamagnetic beads inside drosophila embryos, which have been introduced by injection in the early embryonal stages. At later stages, these particles are internalized into cells, such that direct application of forces inside tissues becomes possible.

A more detailed description of the device can be found here: