Fabrication of hybrid plastic-silicon microfluidic devices for individual cell manipulation by dielectrophoresis

During the last decade, world-wide developments in micro-fabrication technologies have led to numerous Lab-On-a-Chip (LOC) micro-systems covering a wide spectrum of biotechnological applications. Although early LOC developments were driven by glass and silicon micro-fabrication techniques, in recent years polymeric-based LOC have been intensively developed. Taking advantage of each material, a hybrid device associating an active silicon chip with a passive polymeric micro-part has been developed to produce an addressable Cell-chip for individual cell manipulation and sorting. The complete hybrid micro-fluidic device fabrication is described here, including polymer structuring, hermetical sealing, biocompatibility studies, and fluidic interconnections with the sample as well as detection aspects. The cell manipulation is based on dielectrophoresis, which allows cell motion without fluid flow. First biological results will be presented.