Evaluation of cell deformability through micro fluidic channel

"A fair measurement is possible only under one unknown", which is an iron principle in instrumentation technology. In other words, it is difficult to evaluate two unknowns simultaneously, through the measurement of just one output from sensor. The main topic is to evaluate cell deformability through a micro fluidic channel. When a cell passes through a micro channel whose size is a bit smaller than that of cell, the passing time (or speed) strongly depends on the stiffness, the viscosity, and the size of cell. For evaluation of cell deformability, there are two approaches; one is the passive approach where each cell is pushed in the channel under constant pressure, and the other is the active approach where each cell is actively controlled by an actuator. As for the active approach, we developed a new actuator for controlling a cell in micro channel with the resolution of 240 [nanometer] and applied for cell stress test, which is a new cell deformability test. This paper explains the outline of our recent works.