Abstract
We demonstrate nanoscale surgery with femtosecond lasers in a tiny living organism. By just cutting few nano-scale nerve connections inside C. elegans, we succeeded to stop the whole animal from moving backwards. This delicate axotomy keeps the surrounding of the severed axons un-damaged so that the axons can regrow back and the worms recover and can move backwards again. These results demonstrate, for the first time, nerve regeneration in such a tiny organism. The ability to perform precise nano-surgery on such organisms provides tremendous research potential for rapid screening of drugs and discovery of new biomolecules affecting regeneration and development.
© 2005 Optical Society of America
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