Development of a Lab-on-a-Chip for the Characterization of Human Cells

Abstract

AbstractMicrofabricated biochips are developed to continuously monitor cellular phenotype dynamics in a non-invasive manner. In the presented work we describe the novel combination of contact-less micro-dielectric sensors and microfluidics for quantitative cell analysis. The cell chip consists of a polymeric fluidic (PDMS) system bonded to a glass wafer containing the electrodes while temperature and fluid flow are controlled by external heating and pumping stations. Additionally, the cell chip contains an integrated reference arm providing a low-noise detection environment by eliminating background signals and interferences. The high-density interdigitated capacitors (µIDC) are designed to monitor living cells in a space of approximately 10 nL volume by controlling critical electrode characteristics, such as size, shape and passivation composition as well as thickness. The integrated µIDCs are isolated by a 300 nm multi-passivation layer of defined dielectric property and provide non-invasive, stable, robust and non-drifting measurement conditions. The performance of this detector is evaluated using various bacterial, yeast and mammalian cells.