Ultrasound-controlled cell aggregation in a multi-well chip

We demonstrate a microplate platform for parallelized manipulation of particles or cells by frequency-modulated ultrasound. The device, consisting of a silicon-glass microchip and a single ultrasonic transducer, enables aggregation, positioning and high-resolution microscopy of cells distributed in an array of 100 microwells centered on the microchip. We characterize the system in terms of temperature control, aggregation and positioning efficiency, and cell viability. We use time-lapse imaging to show that cells continuously exposed to ultrasound are able to divide and remain viable for at least 12 hours inside the device. Thus, the device can be used to induce and maintain aggregation in a parallelized fashion, facilitating long-term microscopy studies of, e.g., cell-cell interactions.