Sensing for automated biological cell injection
AssigneeMekonos Limited
InventorArunava Steven Banerjee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of controlling a needle actuator to interact with a cell is provided, the method comprising: providing an actuator comprising a tower, a stage and a needle, wherein the needle is mounted on the stage; applying an electrostatic potential between the tower and the stage to retract the needle; moving the actuator towards the cell; reducing the potential so as to allow the stage and needle to move towards the cell; applying calibration data to detect when the needle has pierced the cell; and reducing the potential further once it has been detected that the needle has pierced the cell. The cell can be a biological cell. The needle can be a micro-needle and the stage can be a micro-stage.
Claims23
A method of controlling a needle actuator to interact with an object or a cell, the method comprising:
- providing an actuator comprising a tower, a stage and a needle, wherein the needle is mounted perpendicularly on a planar surface of the stage, and the stage is suspended by a flexible tether;
- applying an electrostatic potential between the tower and the stage to pull the tower and the stage close to one another so as to retract the needle;
- moving the actuator towards the object or the cell;
- reducing the electrostatic potential so as to allow the tower and the stage to move apart from one another, thereby allowing the stage and needle to move towards the object or the cell;
- applying calibration data to detect when the needle has pierced the object or the cell;
- and
- reducing the electrostatic potential further once it has been detected that the needle has pierced the object or the cell.
A method for controlling an apparatus, the method comprising:
- providing the apparatus comprising an actuator, a cell trap, and a storage device, the actuator comprising a tower, a stage, and a needle, wherein the needle is mounted vertically on the stage with a base of the needle attached normal to a flat surface of the stage, and the stage is suspended by a flexible tether;
- retrieving actuation data from the storage device;
- applying a voltage so as to pull the stage towards the tower in a retracted position;
- moving the actuator to within a defined range of the cell trap configured to house a cell;
- applying a varying target actuation voltage based on retrieved actuation data to allow the stage and mounted needle to be forced away from the tower and the retracted position;
- determining when the needle has reached a target region;
- and
- adjusting the voltage to move the needle towards the retracted position.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium in which a program is stored for causing a computer to perform a method for controlling an apparatus, the method comprising:
- providing the apparatus comprising an actuator, a cell trap, and a storage device, the actuator comprising a tower, a stage, and a needle, wherein the needle is mounted normal to a planar surface of the stage, and the stage is suspended by a flexible tether;
- retrieving actuation data from the storage device;
- applying a voltage so as to pull the stage towards the tower in a retracted position;
- moving the actuator to within a defined range of the cell trap configured to house a cell;
- applying a varying target actuation voltage based on retrieved actuation data to allow the stage and mounted needle to be forced away from the tower and the retracted position;
- determining when the needle has reached a target region;
- and
- adjusting the voltage to move the needle towards the retracted position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.