Abstract
In conventional biotechnology, bioparticles, such as cells or DNA are treated as uniform suspensions or solutions, and one can neither specify a particular particle, nor a particular position on the particle. On the other hand, recent advances in micromachining have enabled the fabrication of μm-scale structures, which, in combination with appropriate bioparticle manipulation method, is expected to introduce "spatial resolution" to the biotechnology, where individual bioparticles are handled in more efficient and automated manner. The author's group has been engaged in the development of electrostatic micromanipulation of bioparticles in microfabricated structures, using dielectrophoresis, electrostatic orientation, electrorotation, etc. as the actuation principle. This article summarizes our experimental results on cell and DNA manipulation/processing, together with the theoretical background.
