Title:  CMOS Multi-Modal Cellular and Electrochemical Sensing/Actuating Array with Integrated Microfluidics for Sample Manipulation

Committee: 

Dr. Wang, Advisor

Dr. Inan, Chair

Dr. Swaminathan

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to further revolutionize silicon-based multi-modality sensor/actuating arrays for emerging applications. Understanding complex multi-physical cellular responses is essential for numerous applications in biological/biomedical science research and technology development, requiringcell-based biosensors that are widely used to augment molecular detections. They detect and characterize various biomolecules using living cells or tissues massively paralleled cell interfacing platforms with multi-parametric sensing. Recently, CMOS biosensors with single/multi-modality have been reported. However, most CMOS sensors are only single-modal which cannot capture multi-parametric cellular responses, and yield limited cell information. With multi-modal sensing, a sensor can real-time monitor cellular potential, impedance, and fluorescence responses to accurately capture cell activities, growth/viability, and physiology states. In this proposal, studies on electrode-electrolyte interfaces and several circuit and system innovations are presented to holistically house and characterize cells. These proposed techniques can achieve multi-modalities to characterize with low noise from the electrode-electrolyte interfacial impedance different cell physiological responses including extracellular/intracellular voltage recording, cellular impedance, optical detection. I plan on developing a CMOS multi-modal cellular and electrochemical sensing/actuating array with integrated microfluidics. The combined microfluidic/CMOS platform will allow for the precise control of the quantity of specimens with minimal sample volume ranging from pL to mL levels, offering a high-resolution, low-cost, and high throughput methodology while holistically analyzing biological/molecular species.