Cell-lab on a chip: a CMOS-based microsystem for culturing and monitoring cells

We describe a MEMS-on-CMOS microsystem to encage, culture, and monitor cells. The system was designed to perform long-term measurements on arrays of single electrically active cells. A MEMS process flow was developed for the fabrication of closeable microvials to contain each cell, a custom bio-amplifier CMOS chip was designed, fabricated, and tested, and the fabrication of the MEMS structures on this chip was demonstrated. In addition, bovine aortic smooth muscle cells were plated on the surface, and over the course of a week they adhered, formed processes, and reproduced, verifying the compatibility of the materials used with the cell culture.