A group of researchers from Stanford have managed to magnetically levitate single cells. This is a pretty tremendous feat, considering that we usually magnetically levitate much larger objects (like frogs.) But there's more to it than that. Within a collection of cells, the researchers floated different cancer cells at different strata, such that the breast cancer cells would float to a different layer than the lung cancer cells, and red blood cells separated and sorted to a different layer than white. The results were printed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cells were first treated with a magnetic solution, then placed between two neodymium magnets to create the levitation effect. From there the separation took hold, such that you could sort, say, an E. coli bacteria from out of a slurry of other stomach cells. For right now, it's hard to see an immediate pharmaceutical benefit, but the technology could come in handy for diagnosis of diseases by simply pulling out disease-causing cells.
As they were able to sort out the cells, they were also able to dissolve certain layers with acids. This could potentially open up opportunities for pharmaceutical testing by figuring out more targeted drug testing on cells by isolating them singularly.