An Integrated PDMS Microfluidic Device for Dielectrophoretic Separation of Malignant Cells

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) has been successfully applied and demonstrated to provide novel and non-invasive means for characterizing, manipulating, trapping, separating and isolating microscopic sized particles, including biological cells. In this article, we report on the design, fabrication and performance of a novel, low cost, integrated Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)/DEP microfluidic device capable of controlled manipulation of microscopic sized cells and particles that can be simultaneously utilized both for DEP spectral analysis and cell sorting. We have prototyped microfluidic channels, with DEP microelectrodes incorporated within PDMS channels. Previously, we have evaluated the operation and performance of a prototype device using various dielectric and biological particles, including yeast cells and polystyrene latex beads. In this paper, we report initial experimental observations on malignant cancerous cells. Non-viable cells, due to positive DEP, were attracted to the planar electrodes at frequencies between 200–600 kHz and were clearly repelled from the electrodes, due to negative DEP, at frequencies above 10 MHz.