Single Cell Magnetic Measurements with a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device*

Magnetic nanoparticles play an important role in numerous biomedical applications such as magnetic resonance imaging and targeted drug delivery. There is a need for tools to characterize individual magnetic nanoparticles and the magnetic properties of individual cells. We use a scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to observe the magnetic fields from single mammalian cells loaded with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. We show that the SQUID is a useful tool for imaging biological magnetism and is capable of resolving cell to cell variations in magnetic dipole moments. We hope to correlate these magnetic images with real space imaging techniques such as optical and scanning electron microscopy. The visualization of single cell magnetism can be used to optimize biological magnetic imaging techniques, such as MRI, by quantifying the strength of magnetic dipole moments of in vitro magnetic labeling.