Star Wars in a petri dish

Researchers from Oxford University created the technique to test the effects of new or commonly used drugs on heart function, as well as exploring new ways to treat diabetes. The new method involves flashing blue light onto the cell and watching how it responds by looking at it with a red light. The technique involves inserting genes from blue-green algae and tropical coral into heart or pancreatic cells, which are created in the laboratory. The modified cells are introduced to a laser beam in a microscope, which the researchers named 'the Death Star', and the process is then filmed with a camera. The laser beam turns the cells on and off, making them contract and relax to a fixed beat, which enables researchers to observe small changes that the drugs make in the way the cell responds. For the past 60 years equivalent work has been conducted by capturing cells on a needle and then running an electric current through them. Current experimental techniques are carried out on a cell by cell basis, which make them slow and inefficient, while the new method enables multiple cells to be used simultaneously.