Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is the name given to the induced movement of polarisable particles in non-uniform electric fields. First described analytically in 1951, it has been used since 1966 for the analysis of cells and other bioparticles. It relies on (typically) micromanufactured, planar electrodes in microfluidic systems, and has been applied to study and separate a wide range of cells and other bioparticles. As a discipline it has become widely adopted around the world, with typically 400 publications on the subject in an average year; however, it has never attained widespread adoption in the target biological community, but to the complexities of implementation and interpretation of results. We aim to remedy that through development both of instrumentation and applications.
Numbers in bold refer to the papers on the Publications page.
For more information on DEP, please visit the Dielectrophoresis Network page.
One of the great benefits of DEP has been the ability to probe the electrical properties of cells, quickly, cheaply and easily. As such, it is a technique one might expect to be widely taken up by the cell biology community , but this has been hampered by the problem of getting DEP scientists and cell biologists to communicate. To this end, we work with biologists across a range of disciplines to promote DEP and to better understand cell function. This has included a substantial body of work on cancer, including drug resistance in cancer (25,39,44,48), the effect of environment on cancer cell electrophysiology (64,65), and the effect of anticancer drugs (41,75,78,83). We have also used DEP to examine electrophysiological phenomena in bacteria (24,46,52), algae (27), cardiomyocytes (59), neurons (53) and differentiating stem cells (56,72,90).
Similarly, we have made progress in developing DEP as a potential routine diagnostic. To this end, I have been working with oncologists at the Eastmen Dental Institute at UCL to detect oral cancer using DEP – beginning with early work using cell lines and progressing to full clinical studies (43,58,74). A second full clinical study with 140 patients has been conducted; a paper is in preparation. We have also recently applied the same technique to bladder cancer with Hugh Mostafid in the Royal Surrey County Hospital with impressive results (89). Work is also ongoing with clinicians in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to diagnose Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Our work on the DEP of cells at a more fundamental level can be found on the "electromics" tab,
"Begin with the possible and gradually move towards the impossible"
- Robert Fripp, guitarist