Development of Bio-MEMS Device for Cell Cluster Patterning by Using Dielectrophoresis Method

Abstract

Recently, the investigation of cell-activation and tissue regeneration process has shown the great progress in the biomedical and biomechanical research fields. In this study fabricated Biomedical-Micro Electric Mechanical System (Bio-MEMS) to examine accurately the cell activation by introducing the cell patterning assignment technique, which consists of the photolithograph method to generate the MEMS device and the cell patterning technique by using the dielectrophoresis (DEP) method. In the development of Bio-MEMS devices for cell culture and micro-bioreactor system, unresolved subjects, 1) the fundamental mechanism of cell activation, 2) the flow control of culture medium 3) the accurate cell pattern technique and 4) the implementation of positive DEP methods, are remained. In this study, we fabricate 2-D patterns of point by using the DEP method introducing the positive effects and the trap method by employing the gravity effect and the adhesion technique, to reveal the fundamental mechanism of cell activations, such as the nerve cell axon extension. We succeed to establish the cell patterning technique by using a novel electrode design technique, such as 2-D patterns of point. The results is shown that our novel approach using comprehensive designed electrodes is superior to cell patterning. Therefore, our device able to produce neural network consists of a large number of cells.