Navigating the microenvironment with flip and turn under quadrupole magnetophoretic steering control: Nanosphere- and nanorod-coated microbead

The spatiotemporal accuracy of microscale magnetophoresis has improved significantly over the course of several decades of development. However, most of the studies so far were using magnetic microbead composed of nanosphere particle for magnetophoretic actuation purpose. Here, we developed an in-house method for magnetic sample analysis called quadrupole magnetic steering control (QMSC). QMSC was used to study the magnetophoretic behavior of polystyrene microbeads decorated with iron oxide nanospheres-coated polystyrene microbeads (IONSs-PS) and iron oxide nanorods-coated polystyrene microbeads (IONRs-PS) under the influence of a quadrupole low field gradient. During a 4-s QMSC experiment, the IONSs-PS and IONRs-PS were navigated to perform 180° flip and 90° turn formations, and their kinematic results (2 s before and 2 s after the flip/turn) were measured and compared. The results showed that the IONRs-PS suffered from significant kinematic disproportion, translating a highly uneven amount of kinetic energy from the same magnitude of magnetic control. Combining the kinematic analysis, transmission electron microscopy micrographs, and vibrating sample magnetometry measurements, it was found that the IONRs-PS experienced higher fluid drag force and had lower consistency than the IONSs-PS due to its extensive open fractal nanorod structure on the bead surface and uneven magnetization, which was attributed to its ferrimagnetic nature.

Precise electrokinetic position and three-dimensional orientation control of a nanowire bioprobe in solution

Owing to Brownian-motion effects, the precise manipulation of individual micro- and nanoparticles in solution is challenging. Therefore, scanning-probe-based techniques, such as atomic force microscopy, attach particles to cantilevers to enable their use as nanoprobes. Here we demonstrate a versatile electrokinetic trap that simultaneously controls the two-dimensional position with a precision of 20 nm and 0.5° in the three-dimensional orientation of an untethered nanowire, as small as 300 nm in length, under an optical microscope. The method permits the active transport of nanowires with a speed-dependent accuracy reaching 90 nm at 2.7 μm s-1. It also allows for their synchronous three-dimensional alignment and rotation during translocation along complex trajectories. We use the electrokinetic trap to accurately move a nanoprobe and stably position it on the surface of a single bacterial cell for sensing secreted metabolites for extended periods. The precision-controlled manipulation underpins developing nanorobotic tools for assembly, micromanipulation and biological measurements with subcellular resolution.

Microrobotic Swarms for Intracellular Measurement with Enhanced Signal-to-Noise Ratio

In cell biology, fluorescent dyes are routinely used for biochemical measurements. The traditional global dye treatment method suffers from low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), especially when used for detecting a low concentration of ions, and increasing the concentration of fluorescent dyes causes more severe cytotoxicity. Here, we report a robotic technique that controls how a low amount of fluorescent-dye-coated magnetic nanoparticles accurately forms a swarm and increases the fluorescent dye concentration in a local region inside a cell for intracellular measurement. Different from existing magnetic micromanipulation systems that generate large swarms (several microns and above) or that cannot move the generated swarm to an arbitrary position, our system is capable of generating a small swarm (e.g., 1 μm) and accurately positioning the swarm inside a single cell (position control accuracy: 0.76 μm). In experiments, the generated swarm inside the cell showed an SNR 10 times higher than the traditional global dye treatment method. The high-SNR robotic swarm enabled intracellular measurements that had not been possible to achieve with traditional global dye treatment. The robotic swarm technique revealed an apparent pH gradient in a migrating cell and was used to measure the intracellular apparent pH in a single oocyte of living C. elegans. With the position control capability, the swarm was also applied to measure calcium changes at the perinuclear region of a cell before and after mechanical stimulation. The results showed a significant calcium increase after mechanical stimulation, and the calcium increase was regulated by the mechanically sensitive ion channel, PIEZO1.

Micro-ring based manipulation of magnetized particles

The micromanipulation of untethered magnetic particles facilitates actuation, assembly, and characterization of samples for micro- and nanotechnology applications. Conventionally, macro-scale electromagnets combined with visual servo control are employed to manipulate untethered particles. Here, we propose to employ a micro-ring actuator and a strategy based on parametric excitation for manipulation of magnetized particles against a surface in a liquid medium, which does not require visual feedback. Experimentally, the system has been employed to smoothly manipulate magnetic particles of diameter in the range 30-50 µm to move along predefined trajectories. Subsequently, the particles have been demonstrated to be manipulated into a conventionally inaccessible region beneath the re-entrant walls of a micromachined silicon chip.

Progress in Nanorobotics for Advancing Biomedicine

Nanorobotics, which has long been a fantasy in the realm of science fiction, is now a reality due to the considerable developments in diverse fields including chemistry, materials, physics, information and nanotechnology in the past decades. Not only different prototypes of nanorobots whose sizes are nanoscale are invented for various biomedical applications, but also robotic nanomanipulators which are able to handle nano-objects obtain substantial achievements for applications in biomedicine. The outstanding achievements in nanorobotics have significantly expanded the field of medical robotics and yielded novel insights into the underlying mechanisms guiding life activities, remarkably showing an emerging and promising way for advancing the diagnosis & treatment level in the coming era of personalized precision medicine. In this review, the recent advances in nanorobotics (nanorobots, nanorobotic manipulations) for biomedical applications are summarized from several facets (including molecular machines, nanomotors, DNA nanorobotics, and robotic nanomanipulators), and the future perspectives are also presented.

Environmentally controlled magnetic nano-tweezer for living cells and extracellular matrices

The magnetic tweezer technique has become a versatile tool for unfolding or folding of individual molecules, mainly DNA. In addition to single molecule analysis, the magnetic tweezer can be used to analyze the mechanical properties of cells and extracellular matrices. We have established a magnetic tweezer that is capable of measuring the linear and non-linear viscoelastic behavior of a wide range of soft matter in precisely controlled environmental conditions, such as temperature, CO₂ and humidity. The magnetic tweezer presented in this study is suitable to detect specific differences in the mechanical properties of different cell lines, such as human breast cancer cells and mouse embryonic fibroblasts, as well as collagen matrices of distinct concentrations in the presence and absence of fibronectin crosslinks. The precise calibration and control mechanism employed in the presented magnetic tweezer setup provides the ability to apply physiological force up to 5 nN on 4.5 µm superparamagnetic beads coated with fibronectin and coupled to the cells or collagen matrices. These measurements reveal specific local linear and non-linear viscoelastic behavior of the investigated samples. The viscoelastic response of cells and collagen matrices to the force application is best described by a weak power law behavior. Our results demonstrate that the stress stiffening response and the fluidization of cells is cell type specific and varies largely between differently invasive and aggressive cancer cells. Finally, we showed that the viscoelastic behavior of collagen matrices with and without fibronectin crosslinks measured by the magnetic tweezer can be related to the microstructure of these matrices.

Tweezing of Magnetic and Non-Magnetic Objects with Magnetic Fields

Although strong magnetic fields cannot be conveniently "focused" like light, modern microfabrication techniques enable preparation of microstructures with which the field gradients - and resulting magnetic forces - can be localized to very small dimensions. This ability provides the foundation for magnetic tweezers which in their classical variant can address magnetic targets. More recently, the so-called negative magnetophoretic tweezers have also been developed which enable trapping and manipulations of completely nonmagnetic particles provided that they are suspended in a high-magnetic-susceptibility liquid. These two modes of magnetic tweezing are complimentary techniques tailorable for different types of applications. This Progress Report provides the theoretical basis for both modalities and illustrates their specific uses ranging from the manipulation of colloids in 2D and 3D, to trapping of living cells, control of cell function, experiments with single molecules, and more.

Magnetic tweezers with high permeability electromagnets for fast actuation of magnetic beads

As a powerful and versatile scientific instrument, magnetic tweezers have been widely used in biophysical research areas, such as mechanical cell properties and single molecule manipulation. If one wants to steer bead position, the nonlinearity of magnetic properties and the strong position dependence of the magnetic field in most magnetic tweezers lead to quite a challenge in their control. In this article, we report multi-pole electromagnetic tweezers with high permeability cores yielding high force output, good maneuverability, and flexible design. For modeling, we adopted a piece-wise linear dependence of magnetization on field to characterize the magnetic beads. We implemented a bi-linear interpolation of magnetic field in the work space, based on a lookup table obtained from finite element simulation. The electronics and software were custom-made to achieve high performance. In addition, the effects of dimension and defect on structure of magnetic tips also were inspected. In a workspace with size of 0.1 × 0.1 mm(2), a force of up to 400 pN can be applied on a 2.8 μm superparamagnetic bead in any direction within the plane. Because the magnetic particle is always pulled towards a tip, the pulling forces from the pole tips have to be well balanced in order to achieve control of the particle's position. Active video tracking based feedback control is implemented, which is able to work at a speed of up to 1 kHz, yielding good maneuverability of the magnetic beads.

A magnetic micro-manipulator for application of three dimensional forces

Magnetic manipulation finds diverse applications in actuation, characterization, and manipulation of micro- and nano-scale samples. This paper presents the design and development of a novel magnetic micro-manipulator for application of three-dimensional forces on a magnetic micro-bead. A simple analytical model is proposed to obtain the forces of interaction between the magnetic micro-manipulator and a magnetic micro-bead. Subsequently, guidelines are proposed to perform systematic design and analysis of the micro-manipulator. The designed micro-manipulator is fabricated and evaluated. The manipulator is experimentally demonstrated to possess an electrical bandwidth of about 1 MHz. The ability of the micro-manipulator to apply both in-plane and out-of-plane forces is demonstrated by actuating permanent-magnet micro-beads attached to micro-cantilever beams. The deformations of the micro-cantilevers are also employed to calibrate the dependence of in-plane and out-of-plane forces on the position of the micro-bead relative to the micro-manipulator. The experimentally obtained dependences are found to agree well with theory.

Real-time visual sensing system achieving high-speed 3D particle tracking with nanometer resolution

This paper presents a real-time visual sensing system, which is created to achieve high-speed three-dimensional (3D) motion tracking of microscopic spherical particles in aqueous solutions with nanometer resolution. The system comprises a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) camera, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), and real-time image processing programs. The CMOS camera has high photosensitivity and superior SNR. It acquires images of 128×120 pixels at a frame rate of up to 10,000 frames per second (fps) under the white light illumination from a standard 100 W halogen lamp. The real-time image stream is downloaded from the camera directly to the FPGA, wherein a 3D particle-tracking algorithm is implemented to calculate the 3D positions of the target particle in real time. Two important objectives, i.e., real-time estimation of the 3D position matches the maximum frame rate of the camera and the timing of the output data stream of the system is precisely controlled, are achieved. Two sets of experiments were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the system. First, the visual sensing system was used to track the motion of a 2 μm polystyrene bead, whose motion was controlled by a three-axis piezo motion stage. The ability to track long-range motion with nanometer resolution in all three axes is demonstrated. Second, it was used to measure the Brownian motion of the 2 μm polystyrene bead, which was stabilized in aqueous solution by a laser trapping system.

An integrated open-cavity system for magnetic bead manipulation

Superparamagnetic beads are increasingly used in biomedical assays to manipulate, transport, and maneuver biomaterials. We present a low-cost integrated system designed in bulk CMOS to manipulate and separate biomedical magnetic beads. The system consists of 8 × 8 coil-arrays suitable for single bead manipulation, or collaborative multi-bead manipulation, using pseudo-parallel executions. We demonstrate the flexibility of the design in terms of different coil sizes, DC current levels, and layout techniques. In one array module example, the size of a single coil is 30 μm × 30 μm and the full array occupies an area of 248 μm × 248 μm in 0.5 μm CMOS technology. The programmable DC current source supports 8 discrete levels up to 1.5 mA. The total power consumption of the entire module is 9 mW when running at full power.

Design and Modeling of a 3-D Magnetic Actuator for Magnetic Microbead Manipulation

This paper presents the design, implementation, modeling, and analyses of a hexapole magnetic actuator that is capable of 3-D manipulation of a magnetic microbead. The magnetic actuator employs six sharp-tipped magnetic poles placed in hexapole configuration, six actuating coils, and a magnetic yoke. The magnetic poles concentrate the magnetic flux generated by the coils to the workspace, resulting in a high magnetic field with a large field gradient for magnetic force generation on the magnetic microbead. A lumped-parameter magnetic force model is then established to characterize nonlinearity of the magnetic force exerting on the magnetic microbead with respect to the applied currents to the coils and the position dependence of the magnetic force in the workspace. The force generation capability of the designed system is then explored using the force model. Moreover, an inverse force model is derived and its effect on the magnetic actuation capability is investigated. The inverse force model facilitates the implementation of a feedback control law to stabilize and control the motion of a magnetic microbead. Experimental results in terms of the magnetic force in relation to stable motion control of a magnetic microbead are used to validate the force model.

An integrated open-cavity system for magnetic bead separation and manipulation

Superparamagnetic beads are generally used in biomedical assays to manipulate, maneuver, separate, and transport bio-materials. We present a low-cost integrated system designed in bulk 0.5 μm process to automate the manipulation and separation process of magnetic beads. The system consists of an 8 × 8 coil-array suitable for a single bead manipulation, or collaborative manipulation using pseudoparallel executions. The size of a single coil is 30 μm × 30 μm and the driver DC current source supports 8 different levels up to 1.5 mA. The total power consumption of the entire system is 9 mW when running at full power and it occupies an area of 248 μm × 248 μm.