Rapid on-chip heterogeneous bone-cell patterning via the enhanced dielectrophoresis trap for tissue engineering application

A bone-mimetic cell-patterning technique for on-chip reconstructing heterogeneous osteocytes and hydroxyapatite particles via the design of enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis (DEP) trap is demonstrated and reported in this paper. We mimic the morphology of the Haversian canal system of bone tissue to design the concentricradial-tip-array electrodes for DEP operation. Well-defined and enhanced spatial electric field gradients are created for the in-parallel manipulation of massive individual cells and particles to from the biomimic pattern via vertical/horizontal DEP operation alternatively. Experiment results show that the osteocytes are positioned to from the shape of multiple concentric rings interlaced with pearl chain array of hydroxyapatites, which form bone-mimetic pattern. Good cell viability after cell-patterning is observed.