Playing the violin: A novel versatile acoustic tweezer for single cell handling based on multimodal actuation.

The project aims to develop a novel multiplex acoustic cell and particle manipulation platform.

The goal is to apply many different vibration modes, as opposed to only one vibration mode in current state-of-the-art acoustic micromanipulators, to gain additional degrees of freedom for the manipulation.

The sequence of actuation modes and frequencies will be determined by a control algorithm coupled to a camera and ideally, complete, and independent control over the paths and positions of many different cells is achieved at single-cell resolution.

Life science applications include but are not limited to holding cells against a flow that allows for on-demand medium exchange and trapping of nano-meter sized extracellular vesicles by seed particles. Cell patterning is currently a major challenge in tissue engineering and organ-on-a-chip technology.

Overall, the manipulation platform will revolutionize single-cell analysis.

To this aim, the project requires the development of fundamental theory, an experimental setup, and a control algorithm. To save resources the algorithm and chamber design will be developed and tested in silico before moving to experiments.

The first experiments will be performed in centimeter-scale manipulation chambers, whereafter the chambers will be scaled down to the millimeter scale.

In the end, unit operations relevant to cell biology and clinical applications will be carried out in the newly developed acoustic tweezer.