Automated cell surgery

生物学领域的最新进展提高了人们对可靠的微尺度技术的兴趣和需求，这种技术可以大规模进行，用于胚胎和其他单细胞的研究和诊断测试。这类技术包括在诊断技术中去除极体或卵裂球，包括首选遗传学诊断和植入前遗传学诊断。如有必要，这些工具为产前诊断和终止妊娠提供了一种实用的替代方法。此外，干细胞研究正在以极快的速度扩大。例如，来自需要干细胞治疗的患者的细胞与捐赠者胚胎融合。细胞核从胚胎中取出，取而代之的是患者细胞的细胞核。目前，这些技术都是由高技能的技术人员手动执行的。对这些技术日益增长的需求将很快超过现有人工技术的能力，从而产生对自动化处理的需求。

Recent advances in biological fields have heightened the interest and need for reliable micro-scale techniques which may be carried out on a large scale for both research purposes and diagnostic testing of embryos and other single cells. Such techniques include removal of polar bodies or blastomeres in diagnostic techniques including Prefertilization Genetic Diagnosis and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis. These tools provide a practical alternative to prenatal diagnosis and termination of pregnancy if necessary. Further, stem cell research is expanding at an extremely rapid pace. For example, a cell from a patient who requires stem cell therapy is merged with a donor embryo. The nucleus is removed from the embryo and replaced with the nucleus of the patient's cell. Currently, these techniques are carried out manually by highly skilled technicians. Increasing demand for these techniques will soon exceed the capacity of existing manual techniques, creating the need for automated processing.