Dielectric Phenotyping of Bacteria for Energy and Medicine

The objective of the proposed research is to illuminate the coupling between cell envelope phenotype and dielectric properties. This will be achieved by the investigation of pathogenic bacteria and electrochemically active bacteria. A three-dimensional insulator based dielectrophoresis (3DiDEP) device will be used. The novel 3DiDEP platform enables non-invasive sorting, trapping, and characterization of living cells based upon the cell envelope phenotype. The hypothesis of the work is that 3DiDEP can be used to characterize the functions expressed on the bacteria cell envelope. 3DiDEP enables low voltage, high sensitivity separation and analysis of cells. Also, the proposed 3DiDEP employs electrodes outside of the microchannel, the technique operates at low frequency or DC electric fields.