CELL-CHIP AND AUTOMATIC CONTROLLED SYSTEM CAPABLE OF DETECTING CONDITIONS FOR OPTIMIZING DIFFERENTIATION OF STEM CELL USING MECHANICAL STIMULUS

摘要

Provided are a cell chip and a system thereof that are capable of detecting optimal conditions for stem cell differentiation by mechanical stimuli. The cell chip for cell differentiation experimentation includes a plurality of cell chambers for storing cells and culture media, cell and culture medium injection ports for transferring the cells and culture media to corresponding cell chambers, fine passages for moving the cells and the culture media injected into the cell and culture medium injection ports to the cell chambers, pneumatic injection ports for injecting pneumatic pressures applied to the cell chambers, and apertures having circular films for transferring the pneumatic pressures injected through the pneumatic injection ports to corresponding cell chambers. Here, at least two of the apertures may have different areas to vary the magnitude of pneumatic pressure applied to corresponding cell chambers. Therefore, the cell chip and the control system thereof enable stem cell differentiation experiments under various stimulus conditions, such as application of mechanical stimuli having various magnitudes, periods, frequencies, intervals, and duty ratios, to be performed simultaneously in single pneumatic pressure. The cell chip and control system thus conserve stem cells and reduce experimentation time. In addition, the cell chip can automatically inject and change a cell and a culture medium using an integrated micro-valve system and a capacitance pressure sensor, and can measure the magnitude of a stimulus in real time. Further, the stem cell can be stained and placed under a fluorescent microscope installed in the system to observe a differentiation step and its state in real time in a single chip state.