Development of a Procedure for Dielectrophoretic Separation of Sperm and Epithelial Cells for Application to Sexual Assault Case Evidence

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a procedure that has been used to study and manipulate a variety of cell types, including separating cancer cells from a background of normal cells. This project will explore the use of a commercially available dielectrophoretic system for separation of sperm and epithelial cells. Preliminary experiments to test the feasibility of this approach have been successful. The objective of this project is to adapt a currently existing dielectrophoresis platform for accomplishing the cell separation and to demonstrate that separation is at least as good as the standard methods used in crime labs. If successful, this approach, adapted as either a stand-alone separation device or as a front-end to a microfluidic device, provides a significant potential benefit for increased throughput. ca/ncf