Emerging BioMicroNanotechnologies have the potential to provide accurate, realtime, high throughput screening of live tumor cells without invasive chemical reagents when coupled with ultrafast laser methods. These optically based methods are critical to advancing early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. The first year goals of this project are to develop a laser-based imaging system integrated with an in- vitro, live-cell, micro-culture to study mammalian cells under controlled conditions. In the second year, the system will be used to elucidate the morphology and distribution of mitochondria in the normal cell respiration state and in the disease state for normal and disease states of the cell. In this work we designed and built an in-vitro, live-cell culture microsystem to study mammalian cells under controlled conditions of pH, temp, CO2, Ox, humidity, on engineered material surfaces. We demonstrated viability of cell culture in the microsystem by showing that cells retain healthy growth rates, exhibit normal morphology, and grow to confluence without blebbing or other adverse influences of the material surfaces. We also demonstrated the feasibility of integrating the culture microsystem with laser-imaging and performed nanolaser flow spectrocytometry to carry out analysis of the cells isolated mitochondria.
This paper provides a brief overview of the fields of biological micro-electromechanical systems (bioMEMs) and associated nanobiotechnologies, collectively denoted as BioMicroNano. Although they are developing at a very rapid pace and still redefining themselves, several stabilized areas of research and development can be identified. Six major areas are delineated, and specific examples are discussed and illustrated. Various applications of the technologies are noted, and potential market sizes are compared.
Technologies that could quickly detect and identify virus particles would play a critical role in fighting bioterrorism and help to contain the rapid spread of disease. Of special interest is the ability to detect the presence and movement of virions without chemically modifying them by attaching molecular probes. This would be useful for rapid detection of pathogens in food or water supplies without the use of expensive chemical reagents. Such detection requires new devices to quickly screen for the presence of tiny pathogens. To develop such a device, we fabricated nanochannels to transport virus particles through ultrashort laser cavities and measured the lasing output as a sensor for virions. To understand this transduction mechanism, we also investigated light scattering from virions, both to determine the magnitude of the scattered signal and to use it to investigate the motion of virions.
We report a new nanolaser technique for measuring characteristics of human mitochondria. Because mitochondria are so small, it has been difficult to study large populations using standard light microscope or flow cytometry techniques. We recently discovered a nano-optical transduction method for high-speed analysis of submicron organelles that is well suited to mitochondrial studies. This ultrasensitive detection technique uses nano-squeezing of light into photon modes imposed by the ultrasmall organelle dimensions in a semiconductor biocavity laser. In this paper, we use the method to study the lasing spectra of normal and diseased mitochondria. We find that the diseased mitochondria exhibit larger physical diameter and standard deviation. This morphological differences are also revealed in the lasing spectra. The diseased specimens have a larger spectral linewidth than the normal, and have more variability in their statistical distributions.
Oxygen plasma treatment of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) thin films produced a hydrophilic surface that was biocompatible and resistant to biofouling in microfluidic studies. Thin film coatings of PDMS were previously developed to provide protection for semiconductor-based microoptical devices from rapid degradation by biofluids. However, the hydrophobic surface of native PDMS induced rapid clogging of microfluidic channels with glial cells. To evaluate the various issues of surface hydrophobicity and chemistry on material biocompatibility, we tested both native and oxidized PDMS (ox-PDMS) coatings as well as bare silicon and hydrophobic alkane and hydrophilic oligoethylene glycol silane monolayer coated under both cell culture and microfluidic studies. For the culture studies, the observed trend was that the hydrophilic surfaces supported cell adhesion and growth, whereas the hydrophobic ones were inhibitive. However, for the fluidic studies, a glass-silicon microfluidic device coated with the hydrophilic ox-PDMS had an unperturbed flow rate over 14 min of operation, whereas the uncoated device suffered a loss in rate of 12%, and the native PDMS coating showed a loss of nearly 40%. Possible protein modification of the surfaces from the culture medium also were examined with adsorbed films of albumin, collagen, and fibrinogen to evaluate their effect on cell adhesion.
The development of microsystems that merge biological materials with microfabricated structures is highly dependent on the successful interfacial interactions between these innately incompatible materials. Surface passivation of semiconductor and glass surfaces with thin organic films can attenuate the adhesion of proteins and cells that lead to biofilm formation and biofouling of fluidic structures. We have examined the adhesion of glial cells and serum albumin proteins to microfabricated glass and semiconductor surfaces coated with self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of octadecyltrimethoxysilane (OTMS) and N-(triethoxysilylpropyl)-O-polyethylene oxide urethane (TESP), to evaluate the biocompatibility and surface passivation those coatings provide. These films were exposed to solutions containing serum albumin proteins (4 mg/mL), glial cells in culturing media, and glial cells under fluid flow. While the OTMS surface resisted cell spreading and growth under culture conditions, the same surface induced biofouling in a cell flow experiment with a microfluidic structure. Interestingly, the TESP surface, which was supportive of cell adhesion and proliferation under cell culturing conditions, effectively passivated the microfluidic structure to cell adhesion and biofouling. The results suggest that the cell adhesion process is not only dependent on the chemistry of the surface but also on the time allotted to the cell to probe the surface.
The speed of light through a bio fluid or biological cell is inversely related to the biomolecular concentration of proteins and other complex molecules comprising carbon-oxygen double bonds that modify the refractive index at wavelengths accessible to semiconductor lasers. By placing a fluid or cell into a semiconductor microcavity laser, these decreases in light speed can be sensitively recorded in picoseconds as frequency red-shifts in the laser output spectrum. This biocavity laser equipped with microfluidics for transporting cells at high speed through the laser microcavity has shown potential for rapid analysis of biomolecular mass of normal and malignant human cells in their physiologic condition without time-consuming fixing, staining, or tagging. We have used biocavity laser spectroscopy to measure the optical refraction of solutions of standard biomolecules (sugars and proteins) and human cells. The technique determines the frequency shift, relative to that of water, of spontaneous or stimulated emission from cavity filled with a biomolecular solution. The spectral shift was measured under conditions where the optical contrast between the cell and surrounding fluid was varied over wide limits. This was accomplished by decreasing the cell biomolecular concentration ∼10x by osmotic swelling and by increasing the protein content more than 100x in the fluid. The shift was also measured in human glioblastoma cells that had been sorted by conventional fluorescence-activated cell-sorting according to protein content. The results show that the wavelength shift increases in proportion to the protein concentration in the cell (mass per unit volume) relative to the concentration outside the cell. These results help to qualify the measurements of microcavity spectra in rapidly assessing biomolecular mass concentration (primarily protein) in human cancer cells.
Laser technology has advanced dramatically and is an integral part of today's healthcare delivery system. Lasers are used in the laboratory analysis of human blood samples and serve as surgical tools that kill, burn or cut tissue. Recent semiconductor microtechnology has reduced the size o f a laser to the size of a biological cell or even a virus particle. By integrating these ultra small lasers with biological systems, it is possible to create micro-electrical mechanical systems that may revolutionize health care delivery.