An elastomeric polymer microchip for mechanically tunable cell trapping

This paper presents an elastomeric polymer microchip for mechanically tunable cell trapping. This cell trapping approach utilizes the excellent deformability of the polymer to modulate the characteristics of cell trapping, which allows a predetermined number of cells, ranging from single cells to multiple cells, to be captured in each cell trap. The microchip consists of two elastomeric polymer sheets, one of which bears microstructures to physically capture cells. Experimental results demonstrate that the dimensions of cell capture microstructures can be modulated effectively by applying external force to construct arrays of different numbers of cells on the microchip.