Abstract
Up to now, miniaturization is the recent trend in life sciences. With the emergence of MEMS technologies, many microfluidic components, such as micromixers, microvalves and sample dispensers were developed over the past decade. With the advancement of lab-on-a-chip technology, the applications in biological field have been attracting a significant attention in the past few decades. Complex cellular responses do not only depend on one stimulus but on the integrated information from several stimulus. The concentration gradient generator is an important tool in many biological processes. One of the biological processes is chemotaxis that this thesis wants to study. This research presents a Lab-on-a chip device to achieve and study cells migration in chemotactic concentration gradient. Used the channel geometry complicated enough to fast produce the stable and continued chemotatic concentration gradient. Based on the polarity difference within cells caused by applying different frequencies of the input voltage, we could use the concept of dielectrophoresis (DEP) to control cells to distribute uniformly on a horizontal line in chemotactic concentration gradient for studying the behavior of cells. These functions could be all integrated on a chip and achieved with easy fabrication process.