Development of hydrogel coated end effector for stable cell manipulation by two-fingered micro-hand

Single cell analysis has attracted much attention to reveal the detailed and localized biological information, which is not obtained by the conventional group cell analysis due to the statistical assay on individual cells. In addition, new study field has been rapidly developing such as, aims to be applied to regenerative medicine by assembling organization like cells in vitro. In these fields, the technologies to operate single cells or mass composed of multiple cells freely are useful. In this case, the technique to manipulate the cells stable and fast was required. In such background, we developed two finger micro-hand that realized control of the sub-micro order size object. In this research we aim to achieve a stable grip and easy operation by processing the end effector of the two-fingered micro hand. Since the stabilization of grasping will be expected, if the contact surface between the object and end effector increase. We propose a simple method for coating end effector with hydrogel, which is highly biocompatible. Furthermore, we improved proposed method by using chemically cross-linked hydrogel and showed new methodology for processing an end effector of micro-hand.