High Sensitivity Insulator Based Dielectrophoretic Phenotyping of Bacteria

We have recently designed a novel platform for screening cells known as three‑dimensional insulator based dielectrophoresis (3DiDEP). In dielectrophoresis (DEP), microorganisms in a non-uniform electric field experience forces related to their volume and dielectric properties. Differences in physical properties can be exploited to separate populations of cells. To date DEP has been used to sort cells based on morphology (e.g. gram positive vs. gram negative bacteria), size, and viability. 3DiDEP features advantages over previous embodiments of DEP in that it offers high sensitivity, uses low applied voltages, requires minimal fabrication, and is relatively simple to operate. Our recent work has shown that 3DiDEP can be useful to distinguish bacteria with sub-species resolution, in some cases better resolution than 16S rRNA sequencing. In this talk I will discuss our 3DiDEP design and describe some exciting preliminary results on the characterization of pathogenic bacteria.