Harmonic Acoustics for Single Cell Manipulation

Abstract

<p>Technologies that can manipulate single particles and cells in a high precision, high throughput and contact-free manner have long been motivated by applications in materials science, physics, medicine, and the life sciences. However, current single cell manipulation tools, such as atomic force microscopy, optical tweezers, and micropipette aspiration, suffer from low throughputs, insufficient repeatability over the single cell assay, and physical contacts that can negatively influence testing results. On the other hand, conventional acoustic tweezers can manipulate cells in a high biocompatible and contact-free manner but lack the precision to selectively manipulate single cells for biophysical studies. In this dissertation, I demonstrate the reinvention of the acoustic tweezers for high throughput, high precision, high repeatable and selective single cell manipulation. With the analytical simulation of acoustic waves, I propose both the spatial and temporal modulation methods to generate and control surface acoustic waves to dynamically manipulate single cells. And further biophysical analysis studies, such as the assay of differences in intercellular adhesion among cancer cell lines with different malignancies and metastatic potentials are demonstrated.</p>