Micro-scale composite compliant mechanisms for evaluating the bulk stiffness of MCF-7 cells

Bhargav, Santosh DB and Jorapur, Nikhil and Ananthasuresh, GK (2015) Micro-scale composite compliant mechanisms for evaluating the bulk stiffness of MCF-7 cells. In: MECHANISM AND MACHINE THEORY, 91 . pp. 258-268.

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Abstract

Biomechanical assays offer a good alternative to biochemical assays in diagnosing disease states and assessing the efficacy of drugs. In view of this, we have developed a miniature compliant tool to estimate the bulk stiffness of cells, particularly MCF-7 (Michigan Cancer Foundation) cells whose diameter is 12-15 mu m in suspension. The compliant tool comprises a gripper and a displacement-amplifying compliant mechanism (DaCM), where the former helps in grasping the cell and the latter enables vision-based force-sensing. A DaCM is necessary because the microscope's field of view at the required magnification is not sufficient to simultaneously observe the cell and the movement of a point on the gripper, in order to estimate the force. Therefore, a DaCMis strategically embedded within an existing gripper design leading to a composite compliant mechanism. The DaCM is designed using the kinetoelastostatic map technique to achieve a 42 nN resolution of the force. The gripper, microfabricated with SU-8 using photolithography, is within the footprint of about 10 mm by 10 mm with the smallest feature size of about 5 mu m. The experiments with MCF-7 cells suggest that the bulk stiffness of these is in the range of 8090 mN/m. The details of design, prototyping and testing comprise the paper. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	MECHANISM AND MACHINE THEORY
Publisher:	PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, ENGLAND
Keywords:	Compliant grippers; Bulk stiffness; Cells; Manipulation
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering
Date Deposited:	06 Jul 2015 06:38
Last Modified:	06 Jul 2015 06:38
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/51802

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