A microfluidic system for automatic cell culture

This study presents a new chip capable of automating the cell culture process by using microfluidic technology. This microfluidic cell culture system comprising microheaters, a micro temperature sensor, micropumps, microvalves, microchannels, a cell culture area and several reservoirs was fabricated by using micro-electro-mechanical-systems' fabrication processes. Traditional manual cell culture processes can be performed on this chip. A uni-directional pneumatic micropump was developed to transport the culture reagents and constraint the solutions to flow only in one direction, safeguarding the entire culture process from contamination. A new micro check valve was also used to prevent the culture solutions from flowing back into the microchannels. The microheaters and the micro temperature sensor were used to maintain a constant temperature during the cell culturing process. The pH value suitable for cell growth was also regulated during the cell culture process. A typical cell culturing process for human lung cancer cells (A549) was successfully performed to demonstrate the capability of the developed microfluidic system. This automatic cell culturing system can be eventually integrated with subsequent microfluidic modules for cell purification, collection, counting and lysis to form a cell-based micro-total-analysis system.