CEA Direction des sciences du vivant : The european MeDICS project: a miniaturized cell sorter

The european MeDICS project: a miniaturized cell sorter

Biochips at the CEA
Biochips at the CEA
A MicroArray Production site in Evry
The european MeDICS project: a miniaturized cell sorter
Multi-Patch: a chip-based ion-channel assay system for automatic screening
Phenotypic analysis on a chip
Towards high performance genomic and proteomic analyses
ProteoLab and BioChipLab:Integrated microsystems for preparation of protein sample for mass spectrometry identification

Principle: cell levitation and sorting by reconfigurable 3D dielectrophoretic cages
Partners of the MeDICS project are validating a multiplexed electrode array to perform Single Cell levitation, motion in all directions and analysis. By applying critical electrical fields to the array, cells (a few tens of microns in diameter) are trapped in 3D cages (dielectrophoretic cages) with no mechanical contact.

The aim is to show that the device opens new fields of analysis for rare cell populations (such as biopsy analysis, stem cell sorting and recovery for cell therapy applications) and enables independent and parallel single cell manipulation.

Avantages
Cell-friendly: dielectrophoretic fields are compatible with cell viability. Manipulation is carried out with no mechanical contact.
Flexibility: The cell traps can be reconfigured at will.
Motion: Software control enables independent cell motion in all directions for thousands of cells with no fluid flow.

Prototype for individual cell levitation and motion
The MeDICS-01 prototype is a 320 x 320 electrode matrix (ie : over 100 000 20 µ electrodes) covering 0.4 cm². The matrix can generate thousands of independent cages and independent motion is controlled by a software interface. Sorted cells may be directed towards various compartments on the chip for further analysis and manipulation (drug delivery, liposome fusion, gene transfection..) or towards other CellOnChip devices.

Applications
- Analyzing and sorting small and rare cell samples (stem cell research , surgical biopsies)
- Gene and Cell therapy
- Individual analysis & Single cell manipulation
- Cell to Cell interactions

European partners and their area of expertise
The MeDICS project has obtained a 2 year funding in « Future Emerging Technologies ». Contract n° IST-2001-32437: kick off 1rst of Nov 2001
Silicon Biosystems (coordinator) and ARCES (University of Bologna) are in charge of silicon and control board design and software.
The CEA/Leti brings microfluidic design and packaging process development
The CEA/DSV addresses biocompatibility issues, biological integration and experiments on cell populations
The Inserm brings relevant biological and clinical models and evaluates the performance of the microsystem.

Contacts:
Life Sciences Division: F Chatelain (francois.chatelain@cea.fr)
Leti: P Puget