Contact and Non-Contact Droplets Printing in Fluorocarbon (FC-40) with Automated 3D-Single Cell Printer

High throughput screening, single-molecule analysis, single-cell analysis, cell culturing, microscale cell assay, and micro-sample analysis require 3D printing of nanoliter droplets. Droplets should be covered with fluorocarbons (FC-40) to avoid any kind of contamination with the environment and evaporation. Printing droplets in FC-40 is relatively difficult while following a 3D pattern for desired locations. The previous method of printing droplets needs a relatively large complex system size and high cost associated. To reduce the size and cost and fulfill the requirement, we demonstrated nL droplet printing in FC-40 by contact printing with an automated 3D-Single Cell printer. 3-Axis IAI Cartesian Robot and nano pass nozzle were prepared, and they are cheaper and easy to manufacture. The printed droplets kept their shape and position under the FC-40 until they evaporated. Droplets were printed at the desired locations and the size and volume of the droplets were controlled with a syringe pump and cartesian robots.