Fluorescent probes: Small 20/2009

The frontispiece shows a schematic image of an AFM cantilever with an attached silica particle and SEM images of human epithelial cervical cancer cells. In touching the cells with the silica probes, substantially different adhesion of the particles to cancer and normal cells is found. The difference in adhesion is physical in nature and not caused by cancer-specific molecules but rather by the special topology of the cell surface. Making use of this difference, a new non-traditional method is developed to distinguish between cancerous and normal cervical cells based on the adhesion of fluorescent silica particles. For more information, please read the Full Paper “Towards Nonspecific Detection of Malignant Cervical Cells with Fluorescent Silica Beads” by I. Sokolov et al., beginning on page 2277.