Controlled permeation of cell membrane by a single-bubble stable cavitation in a microfluidic device

Enhancing the cell's membrane permeability enables to promote foreign substance into the cell and has various applications in biomedical engineering. Sonoporation employs the microbubble inertial cavitation to induce reversible cell-pores in the membranes allowing some impermeable molecules to be transferred into cells. However, the inertial cavitation is the violent collapse of bubbles and thus sonoporation process is difficult to control. In this paper, we developed a reversible sonoporation method based on stable cavitation with highly controllable membrane permeability.