How to catch a bug (and what to do with it once you have it)

Single cell technologies are becoming increasingly important in all realms of cell biology, as the classical techniques of taking readouts from millions of cells masks cellular heterogeneity and isn’t useful for rare populations. In the Biophotonics lab at Heriot Watt University we have been developing techniques to isolate single cells from mixed populations using the force of light. In this talk I will present our progress over the last year in isolating bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells, and what we intend to do with these isolated cells.