INK-JET SYSTEM FOR MICROCHEMICAL STIMULATION OF TISSUE

这项建议涉及到一种新的液体分配装置的开发 生物医学研究的技术。该系统的核心是 压电式喷墨--一种固态设备，可以喷射出水滴 以精致的空间、时间和体积流到远程目标上 精确度。喷射器的瞄准和液滴的分配都可以是 远程控制，允许液滴在表面上分配 根据预先选定的空间和时间选择的任何生物样本 程序。 在我们之前关于墨水生物医学应用的研究(第一阶段，SBIR)中- 喷气技术，我们演示了喷气可以用来分配 药物或组织学试剂的微滴落在两个活着的大脑上 切片和组织切片。通过使用这种“微喷”分配机 系统，也可以执行神经生理学/药理学 作为具有以前无法达到的分辨率的组织分析实验。 在目前的工作中，我们建议构建和评估三个原型 用于特定生物医学应用的微喷射系统。这个 仪器将用于(I)向活体中分配微滴和药物 脑切片，(Ii)组织化学试剂的微滴分配 组织活检样本，以及(Iii)分发微滴 在激光过程中要加热的组织上的光吸收染料 显微外科手术。

This proposal concerns the development of a new fluid dispensing technology for biomedical research. The heart of the system is the piezoelectric ink-jet, a solid-state device that can "jet" droplets of fluid onto remote targets with exquisite spatial, temporal, and volumetric precision. Both the aiming of the jets and the dispensing of drops can be remotely controlled, allowing drops to be dispensed across the surface of any biological sample according to preselected spatial and temporal programs. In our prior research (Phase I, SBIR) on biomedical applications of ink- jet technology, we demonstrated that the jets could be used to dispense microdroplets of drugs or histologic reagents onto both living brain slices and histologic sections. By the use of this"microjet" dispensing system, it was possible to perform neurophysiologic/pharmacologic as well as histoloanalytic experiments with previously-unattainable resolution. In the present work, we propose to construct and evaluate three prototype microjet systems for use in specific biomedical applications. The instruments will be used for (i) dispensing microdrops and drugs into live brain slices, (ii) dispensing microdrops of reagents for histochemistry onto tissue biopsy samples, and (iii) dispensing microdrops of photoabsorptive dye onto tissues that are to be heated during laser microsurgery.