On-chip microfluid induced by oscillation of microrobot for noncontact cell transportation

Abstract

The importance of cell manipulation and cultivation is increasing rapidly in various fields, such as drug discovery, regenerative medicine, and investigation of new energy sources. This paper presents a method to transport cells in a microfluidic chip without contact. A local vortex was generated when high-frequency oscillation of a microtool was induced in a microfluidic chip. The vortex was controlled by tuning the tool's oscillation parameters, such as the oscillation amplitude and frequency. The cells were then transported in the chip based on the direction of the tool's movement, and their position, posture, and trajectories were controlled. Bovine oocyte manipulations, that is, transportation and rotation, were conducted to demonstrate the capability of the proposed method, without any contact by the microrobot with high-frequency oscillation.