Abstract
Micropipette aspiration is arguably the most classical technique in mechanical measurements and manipulations of single cells. Despite its simplicity, micropipette aspiration has been applied to a variety of experimental systems that span different length scales to study cell mechanics, nanoscale molecular mechanisms in single cells, bleb growth, and nucleus dynamics, to name a few. Enabled by micro/nanotechnology, several novel microfluidic devices have been developed recently with better accuracy, sensitivity, and throughput. Further technical advancements of microfluidics-based micropipette aspiration would have broad applications in both fundamental cell mechanics studies and for disease diagnostics.