Transport, manipulation, selection and assay of single living cells

医学的科学进步使医疗保健专业人员能够将他们的观察从全身症状扩展到表征特定的细胞群。这导致了针对精确病理过程的更准确、针对患者和疾病的治疗计划。因此，单细胞评估成为自然的下一步。该计划的主要目标是推进微系统开发的知识，使单细胞测定。该项目的短期目标是开发物理现象模型，使用户能够运输和准确定位从血细胞中分离出来的目标活细胞，并开发能够准确执行这些任务的微流体技术。此外，将考虑从生物学、机械或电学角度有助于表征单个活细胞的任何可行的检测方法。从长远来看，用于分离、操作和定位单细胞的原理将进行调整，以产生更高的灵敏度和准确性，例如产生更少的假阴性或假阳性。同时，细胞分离、操作和定位的原理将使微流体技术的发展成为可能，这些微流体技术可用作分离器、测试设备和培养箱。后者将使真实的时间亚文化和评价个性化治疗某些疾病。因此，单细胞试验治疗后单细胞的表征可以对个性化治疗的发展策略的发展产生有价值的见解。短期研究计划的重点是微流体和MEMS的工程应用，而生物学方面的关注，但不是一个调查的主题。在长期研究计划中，单细胞生物学将成为与针对特定检测的微系统开发并行的研究主题。拟议的研究课题是有趣的，因为它提供了更多的洞察生命科学，它是具有挑战性的工程方面，因为许多有关这个问题的电场建模和与媒体和活细胞的相互作用，以及微制造技术，目前是未知的。

Scientific progress in medicine has allowed health care professionals to scale their observations from systemic symptoms down to characterizing specific cell groups. This has resulted in more accurate, patient and disease-specific treatment plans that target precise pathologic processes. Thus, single cell assessment becomes the natural next step. The main objective of the proposed program is to advance the knowledge in development of microsystems that enable single cell assay. The short term objectives of the proposed program are directed towards development of models of physical phenomena that enable users to transport and accurately position targeted living cells separated from blood cells and development of microfluidics capable to accurately perform such tasks. Further, any enabling detection method that would help characterize the individual living cell from the biological, mechanical or electrical point of view will be considered. In long term, the principles used to separate, manipulate and position single cells will adjust to yield higher sensitivity and accuracy such as to produce less false negatives or positives. Meanwhile, the principles of cell separation, manipulation and positioning will enable development of microfluidics that could be used as separators, test devices, and incubators. The latter will enable real time sub-culture and evaluation of personalized treatment for certain diseases. Thus, the characterization of single cells after single cell trial treatment could yield valuable insight on the development of strategies in the development of personalized treatment. The short term research program focuses on engineering application to microfluidic and MEMS while the biology aspect is of concern but not a subject of investigation. The biology of single cells will become a subject of investigation in parallel with a microsystem development targeting a specific assay during the long term research program. The proposed research topic is interesting as it provides more insight into life sciences, and it is challenging for the engineering side as many of the issues related to this subject on modeling of the electric field and the interaction with media and living cells, as well as micro-fabrication techniques, are presently unknown.