A monolithically integrated platform for high throughput cell characterization and drug screening

Real-time physiological properties' characterization of living cells is important for bio-engineering applications such as drug screening. In this paper, we propose an integrated platform to automatically characterize muscle cell mechanics under a variety of culture conditions and drug stimuli in parallel. A Post-CMOS process is developed to fabricate the integrated chip, and then living muscle cells self-assembled on the surface directed by the gold pattern. Preliminary experiment validates feasibility of the procedure. Finally, chip-level packaging is performed using a PDMS cap and a plastic tube.