INK-JET SYSTEM FOR MICROCHEMICAL STIMULATION OF TISSUE

该建议涉及一种新的流体分配器的开发， 用于生物医学研究的技术。 系统的核心是 压电喷墨，一种固态设备，可以“喷射”微滴， 以精确的空间、时间和体积 精度 射流的瞄准和液滴的分配两者都可以是容易的。 远程控制，允许液滴分配到整个表面， 根据预先选择的空间和时间 程序. 在我们之前关于墨水的生物医学应用的研究（第一阶段，SBIR）中- 喷射技术，我们证明了喷射器可以用来分配 将药物或组织学试剂的微滴注入两个活脑 切片和组织切片。 通过使用这种“微喷射”分配， 系统，也可以进行神经生理学/药理学 作为组织学分析实验，其分辨率是以前无法达到的。 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。 的 仪器将用于（i）将微滴和药物分配到活的 脑切片，（ii）分配用于组织化学的试剂的微滴 在组织活检样品上，和（iii）分配 将光吸收染料涂到在激光期间将被加热的组织上 显微手术

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.