Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a new, highly efficient way to pair up cells so that they can be fused together into a hybrid cell.

The technique, which resulted from collaboration between Joel Voldman, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology and a member of the Whitehead Institute, might make it a lot easier for scientists to study what happens when two cells are combined.

For instance, fusing an adult cell and an embryonic stem cell may help researchers study the genetic reprogramming that occurs in such hybrids.

The scientists have developed a simple but ingenious sorting method, which can boost the rate of successful cell fusion from around 10 percent to about 50 percent.

The technique also facilitates thousands of cell pairings at once.

Voldman said that despite the presence of cell fusion techniques in research, there were many technical limitations involved in the process.

And one of the biggest hindrances was how to get the right cells to pair up before fusing them, the researcher added.

If scientists are working with a mixture of two cell types, for example A and B, they end up with many AA and BB pairings, as well as the desired AB match. Earlier, the scientists could successfully trap cells in tiny cups as they flowed across a chip. Each cup could hold only two cells, but there was no way to control whether the cups capture an A and a B, two As or two Bs.