Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 40, No. 4, April 2002, pp. 605∼609 Fabrication of Microstamps and Patterned Cell Network Nakseon Seong and James Jungho Pak * School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 136-701 Ju Hee Choi and Dong June Ahn Department of Chemical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 136-701 Seong-min Hwang and Kyoung J. Lee National Creative Research Initiative Center for Neurodynamics and Department of Physics, Korea University, Seoul 136-701 (Received 11 Feburary 2001) Elastomeric stamps with micrometer-sized grids are fabricated for building biological cell net- works by design. Polymerized polydimethyl-siloxane (PDMS) stamps are cast in a variety of dif- ferent molds prepared by micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Micro square-grid patterns of 3-aminopropyl triethoxy silane (APS) are successfully imprinted on glass plates, and patterned networks of cardiac cells are obtained as designed. The resulting cellular networks clearly demonstrate that cell attachment and growth are greatly favored on APS-treated thin tracks. Here, we report the technical details related to the fabrication of microstamps, to the stamping proce- dure, and to the culture method. The potential applications of patterned cellular networks are also discussed. PACS numbers: 87.18.Hf Keywords: Stamping, PDMS, APS I. INTRODUCTION Development of a proper tool for measuring electrical signals of living cells has brought a host of important understandings in such areas as neurosciences and cell biology. The single channel recording device, like the patch-clamp, is now a standard and essential tool in any neuroscience laboratories worldwide. In the mean time, as personal computer (PC) technology has progressed significantly over the last few decades, a huge amount of data can be easily acquired and handled routinely using a PC. Thus, it is now possible to record signals associated with hundreds of cells simultaneously, so developing a proper multichannel recording device has become an up- to-date issue in bio-engineering community [1]. At the same time, demands on multichannel recording devices are great in the neuroscience community as the recent un- derstandings on biological neural networks are in a large part based on spatio-temporal activities of the relevant networks. One latest research effort to understand spatio- temporal dynamics of electrically active biological cell networks is using a multi-electrode array (MEA) plate in conjunction with a cell culture as shown in Fig. 1 [2]. * E-mail: pak@korea.ac.kr; Fax : +82-62-921-0544 This multichannel recording device was fabricated re- cently in our laboratory using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Figure 1(a) shows a 64- channel MEA plate with a ‘culture ring’ attached, and Fig. 1(b) shows a close-up view of a complex cell net- work grown on the top of the MEA plate. Our complete Fig. 1. (a) 64-channel multi-electrode array (MEA) plate with a culture-ring attached, (b) cerebellar neuronal culture on a MEA plates, and (c) a typical neuronal spike time series acquired through one of the electrodes. -605-