Carbon-Electrode Dielectrophoresis for Bioparticle Manipulation

Here I present the recent advances on the use of 3D carbon-electrode Dielectrophoresis (carbonDEP) for bioparticle manipulation. The ultimate goal is to develop practical platforms for a variety of applications including diagnostics, cell sorting, and food safety. Therefore, the priority is on high throughput, high efficiency and user-friendliness. I’ve previously shown that 3D electrodes penetrating the bulk of the sample improve the throughput of DEP devices by minimizing the distance from a targeted particle to the closest electrode. Moreover, the use of 3D electrodes allows for the widening of the channel cross section, particularly its height, which inherently increases the processed sample volume per unit of time. This work details the low cost fabrication process of tall (>100 μm-high) carbon electrodes and their integration to robust microfluidics networks to obtain DEP chips; as well as two user-friendly portable platforms: one based on a syringe pump and another one based in centrifugal microfluidics. At last, results in bioparticle manipulation obtained in collaboration are presented and include a cell viability assay, cell selection and washing to improve sensitivity of PCR, enrichment of M. smegmatis towards better drugs to treat tuberculosis, DNA concentration and on-chip electrical lysis.