Microfluidic cancer cell isolation system using magnetic nanoparticle hybrids and advanced interdigitated electrode technology

For the past decade in the biomedical engineering industry, extensive research has been conducted in improving magnetic sensing technologies for cell isolation systems. These technologies, through the popular biomarkers, i.e. DNA, RNA, proteins, antibodies, have already been implemented in clinical diagnosis and/or prognosis.An example of a successful commercial product is Invitrogen’s Dynabeads® Technology. Magnetic cell isolation technologies have been evolving slowly mainly due to the complexity of the cancers, the short number of successful cancer biomarkers, and the ethics of magnetic nanoparticles in in-vivo cancer therapy. However, in-vitro cancer therapy is becoming attractive. This thesis explains the research and development of a microfluidic cancer cell isolation system, which together magnetically separates and destroys cancer cells through hyperthermia of MWNTs. The full year was been spent on literature review, designing the microfluidic system, training fabrication and characterization techniques, fabricating component 1 through photolithography, and characterizing surface smoothness and height variation, through atomic force microscopy, and confirming size specifications and detecting electrode rigidity, through scanning electron microscopy. The project is currently being patented due to the uniqueness of the in-vitro cancer therapy concept. AFM confirmed the electrode heights to be approximately 25 nm ± 3 nm, for all three samples, and random variations of surface electrode smoothness from ± 5-10 nm. This concluded how the uneven distribution of SiO2 layer affected the height and smoothness of the electrodes. SEM confirmed decent size specifications for mask design 2 and 5, as they followed the desired size specifications in the design process. However, mask design 4 ended up with electrodes, twice the width of the desired size, that could have been a result of diffraction or mask complexity which thereafter affected the evaporated material