| Speaker : |
Dr. Sander Koster (Institute of Microtechnology, University of Neuchatel) |
| Subject : |
Microfluidics : new tools to study the response of cells to chemicals |
| Date : |
February 24, 2004 (Conference room 4, Institute of Industrial Science, Komaba campus) |
| Abstract : |
The first part of the talk will deal with a general overview of the microTAS activities performed at the Institute of Microtechnology. These activities include the use of trapped freely moving beads in recirculating flows, heterogeneous immunoassays, on-chip heating/cooling and contactless conductivity detection. In the second part of the talk a novel method is presented where living nerve cells are cultured in a cultivation chamber. The goal is to use drugs to stimulate individual groups of living cells, arranged in an nxm array on a surface. Such experiments are increasingly important in applications where a large number of analyses are required, such as drug discovery, environmental monitoring and neural computing. A microfluidic system containing a 50-µL chamber etched in silicon with KOH is presented for the cultivation of living cells. Nutrients are introduced through a 1-mm ultrasonically drilled hole in the Pyrex cover-plate to keep the nerve cells alive. A novel concept for the delivery of drugs to cells is presented, where drugs will be delivered to the cells through 20-µm holes drilled with an excimer laser in the same Pyrex coverplate. The holes are connected with a microfluidic network of channels through which drugs can be pumped individually, as has been demonstrated with slime mold (Physarum polycephalum), a multi-nucleated single cell, that was grown in the flow cell. Ethanol was delivered in a spatially resolved manner to the growing slime mold affecting the viability of only part of the organism. |
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