System approach to characterize living Drosophila embryos for biomedical investigations

Abstract

This chapter discusses the system approach to measure injection force behavior and to characterize mechanical properties of living Drosophila embryos using a well modeled in situ Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric micro-force sensing tool with a resolution in the range of sub-μN. The development of such a sensorized biomanipulation tool based on the highly sensitive PVDF film and the minimally invasive pipette injector plays an important role in realizing the system approach. The chapter reviews the modeling, the design, and calibration of both the signal processing unit and the PVDF piezoelectric micro-force sensing tool. It introduces the event-based human/robot biomanipulation system, and demonstrates the experimental results of the system approach to characterize the mechanical properties of living Drosophila embryos in different stages. The system approach will provide a critical and major step towards the development of automated biomanipuation for minimally invasive injection of living Drosophila embryos as well as significant biomedical investigations.