Ultrasonic Cell Perforation Device Design Studies

Biological tissue and tissue fluids contains many tiny bubbles. When these tiny bubbles are exposed to ultrasound, they can show ultrasonic cavitation, along with the heating and mechanical effect of ultrasound. Cell surface structure enhance permeability, after ultrasonic stop work, cell can be restored. The phenomenon is known as ultrasonic sonoporation. This technique is used in scientific research field of biotechnology, mainly used in delivery of molecules (such as drug and gene) into cells.The application of ultrasound is wide now, There are lots of subdisciplines. ultrasonic technology has been used in field of biotechnology by researcher in the 1990s. Because in biotechnology relevant experiments, researcher often need to transfer molecules (such as drug and gene) into the cells. The membrane is impermeable to some large molecules, but small ones can get through it. So it need to enhance the membrane permeability. The technology of ultrasonic sonoporation was discovered and applied.But the ultrasonic sonoporation has some uncertainty. If ultrasound irradiation is too strong, cell can be broken. If ultrasound irradiation is not enough, cell can not be perforated effectively. And different cell maybe need different ultrasound irradiation. So ultrasound irradiation is the most important parameter for this technology. Ultrasound irradiation contain power and work time.In this paper, in order to test the parameter of ultrasonic sonoporation, we design a experiment device, the device can generate ultrasound effectively, and change power and work time of ultrasound irradiation. We used AT89C2051 in the design of control system, the MCU can control variable of duty cycle and work time. Signal.control system use the keyboard to input to work time and duty cycle. LED can display duty cycle and working time data. We aslo design oscillation signal source, modulator circuit and ultrasonic transmission circuit. Each circuit module schematic and PCB is made and debugged independently. Finally the experiment device can work stably. It is simple, high efficiency. The device has been tested ,and can generate ultrasound effectively. Sonoporation experiments show this device can reach the expected effect.