Development of on-chip automatic cell sensing and ejection system

We succeeded in automatic dispensing of a single swine oocyte (φ=100 um) from a biochip to atmosphere using developed cell ejection system. The developed system is composed of a cell loader, an inkjet mechanism and a capacitance sensor to dispense a droplet with a single cell. The performance of the sensor and the inkjet were evaluated using the fabricated micro-fluidic chip. We succeeded in sensing the passage of microbeads and oocytes (<|)=50-100 um) with the velocity of over 6 mm/s using a capacitance sensor which was fabricated on a glass substrate by photolithography techniques. The advantages of proposed system were that composed of the reusable drive system and a disposable biochip.