MEMS applications for single cell manipulation and assessment

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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.