Eric Cheng is a PhD candidate from the BioMEMS lab supervised by Dr. Karen Cheung, working on improving the single cell-printing outcome from piezoelectric inkjet devices. Using state-of-the-art techniques such as high-speed microscopy and micro-PIV, investigations into the motion of living cells during inkjet actuation revealed an undesirable phenomenon which may interfere with the cell-encapsulation process. Rheological manipulation of the cell suspension medium through the addition of a bio-compatible polysaccharide effectively mitigated any negative cell encapsulation effects producing a predictable cell dispensing outcome fitting the expected statistical distribution. The applications of the findings could lead to the development of cell printers for tissue engineering and fine-control over heterogeneous tissue structure at the interface with artificial materials.
