A microneedle array able to inject tens of thousands of cells simultaneously

This paper presents a biological microelectromechanical system for injecting foreign particles into thousands of cells simultaneously. The system inserts an array of microneedles into a monolayer of cells, and the foreign particles enter the cells by diffusion. The needle array is fabricated using a series of deep reactive ion etches and produces about 4 million needles that average 1 mu m in diameter and 8 mu m in length with 10 mu m spacing. The insertion of the needles is controlled through a compliant suspension. The compliant suspension was designed to provide for needle motion into the cells while restraining rotations or transverse motions that could result in tearing of the cell membranes. Testing was performed using propidium iodide, a membrane impermeable dye, injected into HeLa cells. Average cell survivability was found to be 97.7%, and up to 97.9% of the surviving cells received the propidium iodide.