Development of an Autonomous Bio-microrobot for Patch Clamping

Micro robotic manipulation plays an increasingly important role in demanding biomedical research and applications such as patch clamping. Studies of individual cells via patch clamp techniques are one of the key components in researches and studies of cellular membrane proteins for many applications. However, most of the patch clamp process is presently conducted manually and operators often require long training period to become proficient in the task. The success rate of this time-consuming process depends largely on the condition of the operation such as the contact position, force and probe velocity, resulting in low efficiency of the whole process.This project aims at developing a sensing feedback micro-robotic system to achieve a more reliable and efficient micro manipulation for patch clamping. In particular, several issues of the patch clamping will be addressed by advancing the current micromanipulation mechanisms. The new micro-robotic system employs an integrated end effector consisting of a computer controllable micromanipulator and a patch clamp probe, which is capable of recording dynamic electrical potential across the cell membrane. The system also includes real-time observation of the cells and the probe tip, this provide the visual feedback of dynamic deformation of the cells. A contact-to-patch model will be developed based on the correlation between the feedback signals, which eventually enable an on-line position tracking and whole-cell patch-clamp recording. The results of this project will lead to the development of an efficient and effective autonomous system for micromanipulation in cell electrophysiological studies, and the research has potential bring significant impact multidisciplinary research development.