Cell Clinics Technology Platform for Cell-Based Sensing
Mario Urdaneta, Marc Christophersen,
Elisabeth Smela
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland 20742
Abstract—The cell clinics microsystem is a platform for longterm cell monitoring for such applications as cell-based
sensing. This system includes microvials with individually
actuated lids, integrated circuits that monitor cells and control
the position of the vial hinges, and an automated cell loading
mechanism that relies on dielectrophoresis to manipulate
individual cells into the vials.
I.
INTRODUCTION
The cell clinics system is designed to house individual
cells or small groups of cells for long-term monitoring and
experimentation (Figure 1) [1], with potential applications
ranging from medical diagnosis to detection of biochemical
agents. The system uses micro-electro-mechanical systems
(MEMS) fabricated over complementary metal oxide
semiconductor (CMOS) chips that include sensing, signal
conditioning, and MEMS control circuitry. The
MEMS
comprise cell-sized cavities (vials) that each have lids that
can be opened and closed using bilayer hinges.
Dielectrophoresis shall be used for automated loading
of the cells into the vials. Dielectrophoresis is appropriate
in this case because of the high vial density, chip surface
inhomogeneities, small size ranges of operation, and the
presence of CMOS/MEMS, which limits integration of
other methods.
Somashekar B. Prakash, Nicole Nelson,
Pamela Abshire
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland 20742
II.
MEMS PLATFORM: VIALS AND LIDS
The purpose of the lidded vials is to keep specific types
of cells over specific CMOS sensors, as well as to isolate
them physically, chemically, and/or electrically from other
cells. The lids and vials are both made from SU8, a
biocompatible negative photoresist. The bilayer hinges
comprise gold and the electro-active polymer polypyrrole,
whose volume is voltage controlled [2]. These actuators can
operate in bio-fluids and are fabricated at CMOS-compatible
temperatures.
The actuators shown in Figure 2 were controlled using an
external potentiostat. Actuators were also successfully cycled
using a CMOS control circuit designed in-house (see below),
which will ultimately be integrated into the system.
Figure 2. SU8 microvial with a polypyrrole/gold bilayer
hinge on a dummy silicon sample. The hinge is shown in the
open (V = -1 V vs. Ag/AgCl) and closed (V = 0 V) positions.
Figure 1. The cell clinics array microsystem for long term
monitoring of cells
1
We thank the MOSIS service for providing chip fabrication; these chips
will be used to teach an undergraduate course in mixed signal VLSI
design. This research was supported by National Science Foundation
through Awards 0238061 & 0515873 and by the Laboratory for Physical
Sciences.
III.
CMOS PLATFORM
A. Bio-amplifier
For the purpose of monitoring the activity of electrically
active cells (such as neurons and muscle cells), a bioamplifier has been designed for amplifying weak extracellular
signals. The bioamplifier is a low voltage, low noise CMOS
transconductance amplifier, designed for a gain of 100 and
a bandwidth of 3 kHz. The circuit has been tested and
characterized with live cells cultured on the chip [3]. A
bioamplifier test chip for integration with the MEMS
structures has been fabricated in a commercially available
0.5 µm CMOS process. A packaged chip is shown in
Figure 3 with MEMS microvials on the surface. The
bioamplifier chip comprises an array of amplifier modules
connected to an array of on-chip electrodes for cell sensing
and an array of actuation electrodes for actuator control.
models (FEMLAB, Comsol, Inc.) and are varying the
electrode configuration and vial geometries.
Figure 4. The dielectrophoretic trap used to load individual
cells into the microvials.
Figure 3. 24-bioamplifier CMOS chip with MEMS
structures. The chip has been packaged as described in [4].
B. Integrated Potentiostat
A CMOS potentiostat circuit was designed for control
of, and integration with, the MEMS actuators [5]. The test
chip comprises single-ended amperometric potentiostat
modules connected to on-chip working, reference, and
counter electrodes.
The potentiostat module was
successfully bench-tested for cycling off-chip polypyrrole
films on a gold-coated silicon substrate. Actuation tests
were successfully performed on an array of 416
microactuators with hinge lengths varying from 4 µm to
200 µm.
IV.
CELL LOADING
Since the cell clinics system comprises an array of
vials in which a few cells must be individually loaded, we
are pursuing an automated loading system. The device is
illustrated in Figure 4. Dielectrophoretic forces, which act
on uncharged particles in non-uniform electrical fields [6],
are used to steer the cells over the chip surface and into a
vial. Two electrodes are used to accomplish this: the DEP
electrode (1), inside the vial, is used to pull the cell in,
while electrode (2), outside the vial, is used to keep other
cells out of the vial. The upper edge of the vial can give
rise to localized parasitic cages. During loading, we
observe that particles become trapped at the upper edge of
the vial. To solve this issue, we are using numerical
V.
SUMMARY
We present a hybrid CMOS/MEMS microsystem for
housing and monitoring cells long-term.
The hinged
microvials have been tested and integrated with the CMOS
chip. The bioamplifier and potentiostat circuits have been
successfully tested, and the amplifier has been integrated into
the cell clinics chip.
Cell loading, which relies on
dielectrophoresis, has been tested, and parasitic cage
problems are being addressed with the aid of numerical
modeling.
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