Aplicación de la dielectroforesis a la caracterización dieléctrica de células

Abstract

The thesis deals with an important subject: the modelisation of electrokinetic phenomena applied to the dielectric characterisation of biological cells, with application to the development of biochips and other devices for diagnosis and bioparticle manipulation. The contribution of this work consists in the implementation of an specifique software based on the boundary element method, and the subsequent analysis of its applications. It is suitable for analysing different situations. Firstly, it is applied to the design of micro fluidic devices and, then, to the dielectric characterization of bacteria subjected to RF electromagnetic fields in dielectrophoresis experiments. It has also been applied to the study of the aggregation effects and the influence of the surface morphology of cells on their dielectrophoretic behaviour. The theoretical analysis presented has been supported by some experimental studies.