Micromanipulator
A micromanipulator (English micromanipulator or micro-manipulating device ) with its additional tools such as fine needles, pipettes or electrodes is an additional instrument to the microscope for mechanical interventions on objects with very small dimensions (in the range of a few micrometers or below such as cells, bacteria or colloid particles ). It is used, for example, in microsurgery , in reproductive medicine for cell processing and for positioning the measuring electrode in patch-clamp technology . Under optical control (microscope) the micromanipulator is used for operations on tissues and cells of living beings . Extremely precise interventions can be carried out with very fine microcapillaries , needles, electrodes and other instruments. The technique is known as micrurgy or micromanipulation .
The micromanipulator “translates” the movements of the human hand that are far too coarse in relation to the examination object into very fine movements of the instruments used, which are controlled mechanically, hydraulically or electronically . Typical micromanipulators allow movements in all three dimensions of space.
A micromanipulator was first constructed in 1899 by SL Schouten in Utrecht and at the same time by MA Barber in Kansas. The method of micrurgy was then worked out and refined primarily by the American biologist Robert Chambers and the Hungarian zoologist and cytologist Tibor Peterfi .
literature
- Article “Micromanipulator” in: Lexicon of Biology in eight volumes, Volume 5, Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 1985, Herder Verlag, page 444
Individual evidence
- ↑ V. Bisceglie, A. Juhász-Schäffer: The tissue cultivation in vitro. Monographs from the entire field of the physiology of plants and animals. Volume 14. Berlin 1928, Julius Springer publishing house, page 35.