Iso-dielectric cell Separation

Increased throughput in the techniques used to engineer new metabolic pathways in unicellular organisms demands similarly high throughput tools for measuring the effects of these pathways on phenotype. For example, the metabolic engineer is often faced with the challenge of selecting the one genomic perturbation that produces a desired result out of tens of thousands of possibilities [1]. We propose a separation method – iso-dielectric separation, or IDS – which separates microorganisms continuously based on their intrinsic dielectric properties [2-3]. Because IDS is an equilibrium method, sorting cells according to their unique equilibrium positions in an energy landscape, it offers enhanced specificity over other label-free separation methods [4]. This technology would enable high throughput screening of cells based upon electrically distinguishable phenotypes.