Microfluidic System for Spatiotemporal Investigations of Cellular Dynamics

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Efforts to probe and modeling the dynamics of processes of biological cells have been hampered by the lack of experimental systems to both control the chemical environment of a cell in space and time and to measure the response of a cell to such chemical stimuli. This project will develop a new instrument to precisely manipulate the spatiotemporal chemical environment of a cell. The new system will integrate microfluidics, digitally controlled electromechanical systems, microscopy, and computer vision for observing cells as input-output dynamic systems. Varying the relative pressures of the reservoirs feeding two confluent channels of a Y-shaped microfluidic network will cause the interface between the two laminar streams in the output channel to move. Closed-loop pressure control will enable the rapid control of the fluid interface automatically for the precise manipulation of a cell's chemical environment. The complete system will include an optical microscope with a fluorescence imaging camera to observe the interface and cells in the outflow channel. A vision system will enable detection of the interface position and of the cell's position and other responses. To demonstrate the utility of the system as a biology research tool, we will investigate dynamic cell motion in chemotaxis.