Dynamic manipulation and patterning of breast cancer cells in biosolution

Abstract

This paper reports the first experimental exploration of non-invasive and fast manipulation of breast cancer cells by harnessing multimode micromechanical resonators operating in biosolution. We demonstrate, for the first time, that groups of breast cancer cells are spatially manipulated into controlled microscale patterns, facilitated by the spatially abundant and diverse multimode resonances of vibrating thin micro-diaphragms. We further show that these cell patterns can be dynamically switched within 30s via programmed excitation frequencies, exhibiting a cell manipulation speed at ∼4μm/s. The results demonstrate a versatile platform for cell manipulation and patterning at microscale, which may facilitate breast cancer related studies at cellular level.