Magnetic Microrobots as a Platform for Cell Clean Up

Mobile magnetic microrobots have been extensively used in a wide range of in vitro biomedical applications due to their numerous advantages. Magnetic microrobots in particular have been developed and shown great potential over the past two decades for the manipulation and migration of both single cells and cell aggregates. The efficient clearance of cell aggregates is crucial to prevent uncontrolled cell proliferation, tissue damage, and invasive surgeries, especially for those related to the vascular system. In this work, we showed cellular manipulation, and mobility to achieve cellular clean up on Human Liver Cancer (HepG2) cells by using two types of untethered magnetic microrobots that are different in type and size. We performed the cellular clean up in the microchannel, which can demonstrate the closed working environment, and also on a glass slide to present an air-liquid interface. We showed that the microrobots moved a cluster of cells in both conditions which makes them potentially useful for sorting and separation applications. Furthermore, cell viability was assessed by using a trypan blue staining assay on HepG2 cells right after and 24 hours after microrobot actuation.