Programmable On-Chip Manipulation and Separation of Biological Cells Using a Rotating AC-FFET Platform

Area of Science:

• Microfluidics and Nanotechnology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Cellular Manipulation

Background:

• Precise manipulation of micro/nanoscale biological entities is crucial for biomedical applications.
• Existing methods often lack programmability, selectivity, or require physical contact and labeling.
• This limits their use in complex biological environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel platform for programmable, contactless manipulation of biological entities.
• To enable cell enrichment, trajectory steering, and separation using electric field modulation.
• To demonstrate label-free cell sorting based on dielectric properties.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a bipolar electrode-associated micromotor propulsion (BAMP) platform.
• Employed a rotating alternating current-flow field effect transistor (ROT-FFET) for electric field control.
• Dynamically reconfigured induced-charge electroosmotic (ICEO) flow and dielectrophoretic (DEP) forces.

Main Results:

• Achieved real-time manipulation of synthetic particles and live cells (yeast, 293T, red blood cells) up to 3.5 μm s^-1.
• Demonstrated programmable control of cell enrichment, trajectory steering, and separation.
• Successfully performed contactless, label-free cell sorting by exploiting dielectric properties.

Conclusions:

• The BAMP platform offers precise, programmable, and contactless control of micro/nanoscale biological entities.
• This technology has broad applicability in additive manufacturing, microrobotics, and biomedical microdevices.
• Future work can integrate directed motion for bottom-up fabrication of complex structures.