Development of label-free methodology towards non-invasive profiling of cellular dynamics

The goal of this dissertation work is to develop label-free methodology to characterize cell dynamics in a non-invasive manner. Studying cell dynamics is critical for understanding the complex nature of cells, which is the basic building block of all living organisms. The ability to characterize cells in a non-invasive manner provides a new dimension in several applications such as (i) target cell isolation, (ii) treatment sensitivity to newly discovered drugs and (iii) both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The primary reason behind the development of such non-invasive methodologies is the lack of techniques that can characterize cells without compromising their integrity and the inability to characterize an unknown cell sample that has no prior known surface markers or other biomolecular characteristics. In this dissertation, three aspects of label-free cell characterizing methodology electrokinetics are discussed, which are (i) device biophysics and the working phenomena of the non-invasive method, (ii) influence of suspension medium on cells and (iii) effect of electrical changes within the cells on the device.