Julio M. D'Arcy, Erik C. Dreaden, Paula T. Hammond
Hammond Laboratory, Koch Institute
Electron Microscopy

"This image shows two human breast cancer cells spreading over a porous and texturized surface. These cells are supported on nanofibers of an electrically conducting plastic serving as a scaffold for probing cellular growth. These nanofibers can be designed of different sizes and shapes and allow cells to be punctured in order to inject them with a variety of chemicals that are capable of killing them.

I collected this image in order to study the interaction between a porous polymeric nanofibrillar surface and human cancer breast cells. I was trying to study how fast these cells would spread on a highly doped conducting polymer surface such as 3,4-polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT)."