MEMS applications for single cell manipulation and assessment

该研究计划的主要目标是促进知识的发展，使单细胞分析能够完全用于检测特定的医疗状况、个性化医疗和治疗。这项研究是由好奇心和生物工程研究的最新趋势推动的。在这项研究中考虑了更成熟的技术，因为很有可能在这个五年计划的一部分之后确定新的研究方向。研究方向是工程方面的研究，重点是细胞分离和分化，细胞操作和评估。该方案的独特之处在于对所处理的三个问题采用了统一的方法。质量守恒和能量需求将被研究。短期内的研究将集中在利用压力驱动流动、介质电泳和微流体通道的三维结构将确定的颗粒从流体中分离出来。研究还集中在两相流和改进所需电场与电极结构之间的相关性。此外，短期研究的重点是通过细胞的机械、电或光学特性提供的线索来评估细胞。本研究将主要为开展此类研究提供工程工具，同时将在研究计划的长期范围内考虑生物物理相关性。该研究是高度多学科的，因为所处理的基本方面是在工程中。

The main objective of the proposed research program is to advance the knowledge that will fully enable single cell analysis for detection of specific medical condition, personalized medicine and theragnostics. The research is driven by curiosity and by the recent trends in bio-engineering research. More established technologies are considered in this research as it is quite likely that new directions of research will be identified following this five years part of the program. The research is directed the engineering aspect of the research and is focusing on cell separation and differentiation, cell manipulation and assessment. The uniqueness of the proposed program is the unitary approach on the three problems that is dealt with. The mass conservation and the energy requirements will be investigated. The short range of the investigation will focus on separation of determined particles from fluid using pressure driven flow, dielectrophoresis and 3D configurations of micro-fluidic channels. The research is also focusing on the two phase flow and improvement of the correlation between a desired electric field and the configuration of the electrodes. Further, the short range research is focusing on cell assessment through clues provided by mechanical, electrical or optical characterization of cells. This research will mainly provide the engineering tools to carry out such research while the bio-physical correlation will be considered in the long range of the research program. The research is highly multidisciplinary as the fundamental aspects that are tackled are in engineering.