A Microfluidic Platform with Microacoustics and Dielectrophoresis for High Throughput Analyses of Spatiotemporal Signaling in Biological Cells

In this paper we describe our work that uses acoustics and dielectrophoresis to move particles/cells in microsystems. These particle manipulation technologies are used to create a high throughput system for spatiotemporal analyses of signaling within biological cells. The fabrication scheme and the focusing characteristics of the system are presented. The system allows the focusing characteristics to be tuned and optimized by changing the frequency of actuation for both the dielectrophoretic and piezoelectric electrodes. In addition to system characterization, we present initial data positioning rat basophilic leukemia (RBL) cells along the diffusion boundary of two different flow streams.