Polymer microfluidic device for high-throughput single-cell encapsulation, lysis, and biological assay

Single cell analysis is the present and future of biological research. It's be-coming clear that sub-populations of cells within a larger group can often bethe culprit for diseases or malfunctions. In this work we aim to provide a toolthat allows biological researchers to better analyze single cells within cell pop-ulations by removing the barrier to observing analytes contained within thecell's membrane. By providing physical access to the intracellular compoundsin a single cell, we can analyze individual cells for levels of analytes that werepreviously only available through bulk measurements of a lysed cell popula-tion. The technique is similar to flow cytometry, but we will use droplets as aphysical analog to cells in a flow cytometer-type configuration. This distinc-tion allows for lysis of a single cell within a droplet and prevents diffusion ofinternal components outside of the droplet's barrier. Analysis of analyte lev-els is accomplished with fluorescence labeling and laser based querying of thefluorescence concentration. This work is accomplished through use of a plasticmicrofluidic network