Speaker
Description
For cell analysis, cell membrane disruption or cell lysis is necessary in extracting intracellular components for further examination. One of the high efficient cell lysis techniques is electroporation, in which the high electric field strength is used to create nano-size pores on cell membrane. By using microfluidic system, high electric field strength can be generated using low applied voltage due to ability to fabricate electrodes in very close proximity. Computer simulation was used to optimize electric field strength in designing microchannel. In this experiment, 2.5 cm long and 50 x 40 microns^2 cross section microchannel was fabricated in PDMS structure. The channel was attached on 30 nm thick gold planar micro-size electrodes on a glass slide. The spacing between fabricated electrodes was 83 microns, capable to producing 1.5 kV/cm when applying 15 V external voltages, which is a threshold electric field in destructing cell membrane. Algae cells were successfully used to demonstrate the performance of the device in disrupting membrane structure.
