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News service

Contactless medical micropincette is being created at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Publication date: 
2018/03/27
The team of docent Zdeněk Hurák from the Department of Control Engineering of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering managed to master the technique of using electric fields to control multiple microscopic objects simultaneously and independently. Thanks to engagement in the Biocentex interdisciplinary research project, this technology can be used to diagnose diseases in the future. The Department of Analytical Chemistry from the Institute of Analytical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and biochemistry scientists from Masaryk University cooperate in the research program of the Center for Advanced Bioanalytical Technologies (Biocentex), supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. The goal is the so-called Lab on a chip, a way to work with minimal volumes of chemical or biological samples.

The team of doc. Hurák contributed to the Biocentex project with non-contact micromanipulation technologies. The basis is a miniature field composed of electrodes on which the force field can be actively modulated by dielectrophoresis. In a sample placed on a slide above the electrodes, it is possible to move actively with multiple microscopic objects simultaneously and independently as needed. In addition, the system has immediate feedback. This compact solution, using algorithms from cybernetics and robotics, is unique worldwide.

The Biocentex research program is still at the level of basic research, but its motivation is obvious, and practical applications are expected in several years´ outlook.
technet.iDnes.cz, technickytydenik.cz, sciencemag.cz and feedit.cz also informed about the project.