Nanomanipulation of Living Cells on a Chip Using Electric Field: General Concepts and Microdevices

Direct continuous (DC), pulsed (PEF) or alternative (AC) electric fields are well-known to induce specific effects on living cells or on molecules (including DNA and proteins) and are commonly used in molecular or cellular biology, and more recently for clinical treatment. Pharmacological industries and medical research are interesting in the development of new tools permitting to understand biophysical or biochemical phenomena involved in some diseases. They will permit to analyze more precisely protein pathways, to treat a large number of cells or to perform a complete reaction or process with the same device. Miniaturization is the best way to achieve these goals by integrating a lot of functions on the same substrate and by using the capabilities to parallelize some process.Here are presented recent results on active handling and treatment of cells in a microfluidic device. In particular we present recent achievements concerning cell fusion and electronanomanipulation.