The sense of touch is poorly understood, partly due to the difficulty in making combined mechanical and electrophysiological measurements on individual touch receptor neurons. In this work, we used micromachined silicon force sensors to measure the force sensitivity of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to nose touch. The touch sensitivity of wild-type worms and three mutants were measured and analysis is ongoing.

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Beth L. Pruitt received the BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, Cambridge, MA in 1991, the MS degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University in 1992, and the PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2002 supported by both the Hertz Foundation Fellowship and the Stanford Future Professors of Manufacturing Fellowship. She served as an officer in the US Navy with tours as an engineering project manager at Naval Reactors in Washington, DC and as an engineering instructor at the US Naval Academy and is certified as a professional engineer. She is presently an assistant professor at Stanford University. Her research interests include micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), particularly materials characterization, manufacturing and design for packaging, systems integration, biomedical devices and biological measurements. She is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Materials Research Society.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• (2009), "A Microsystems Approach to Cellular Manipulation and Interaction," http://globalhub.org/resources/1796.

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