1. Microfluidics
2. Designing the chip

The creation of the SmashColi

When we started microfluidic experiments, the experiments required flowing cells in chambers and exposing them to different solutions and so we used the chip that was already available to us: the MITOMI chip.

When we started microfluidic experiments, the experiments required flowing cells in chambers and exposing them to different solutions and so we used the chip that was already available to us : the MITOMI chip.

However for our project, where mechanical pressure will induce our touch sensitive bacteria, we thought of designing a new chip with bigger chamber (to increase the emission of the signal per chamber) and to add ‘huge buttons’ above the chambers to enable us to ‘squish the cells’, thus the SmashColi was designed.

This chip is able to separate the array of chambers in 4, permitting us to flow in different cells and different solutions on one chip. Additionally, an input was designated for every 7 columns of buttons allowing us to put 4 different pressures on each row of cells. One row out of two was deprived of buttons to be used as a negative control. With all of this in mind, one chip is able to have 4 different cells on for each type of cells and 4 pressures can be applied on them giving a total of 16 different experiments.

You may wonder why we didn’t just have chambers and press on the chip with a pen or our finger. Well the possibility of the SmashColi is that by applying the pressure through a machine, it is possible to quantify how the cells react towards a specific pressure. Once the cells were ready we would be able to quantify the intensity of the signal based on the pressure applied to them.