We present the application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for cell electroporation that is performed in a microfluidic device. Lab on a chip (LOC) developments have raised unique possibilities to scale down cell manipulation systems to a cellular level to achieve higher performance and accuracy. Among the systems employed for cell disruption, electroporation without chemical reagents provides many advantages but suffers from high voltage requirements. We have exploited the electric field enhancement by CNTs to realize low-voltage electroporation. A microchip with embedded aligned CNTs has been developed to test the effect of the enhanced electric field on electroporation of mammalian CHO cells. Fluorogenic Calcein AM dye is used to image the release of the intercellular medium as an indication of electroporation. The electroporation phenomenon is recorded in real-time and compared with that of a device without CNTs. The results show that at a voltage as low as 3 volts, the electroporation yield rate is increased by 72% with the incorporation of CNTs. This enhancement is a promising advancement towards integration of low-voltage electroporation with other low-voltage cell manipulation techniques.
