Encapsulation of living cells using microgels has a wide range of applications in pharmaceutical research, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and personalized drug screening. Various cell encapsulation techniques have been proposed thus far focusing on creating cell-laden microgel particles. However, current techniques have limited control over the shape and size of the encapsulating particles and lack ability to address individual cells.

This research aims to develop a method for adaptive encapsulation of particles with geometrically and biochemically complex micro-particles. To this end, we demonstrate image-based particle detection in a microfluidic channel and real-time in-flow lithography to encapsulate suspended particle employing a digital micro display as a dynamically reconfigurable virtual photomask. Digital dynamic mask is economical and offers the flexibility of rapidly changing the mask on demand. Microfluidic environment allows for mass production of micro-particles having various chemical composition in a continuous manner. Combining these unique capabilities, we present encapsulation of individual particles with graphically encoded information. Visual information (shape, size, and location) of polystyrene micro-beads suspended in a photo-curable liquid resin is acquired through digital imaging and subsequent image analysis, based on which desired digital patterns, possibly with graphical information, are created and optically projected on the target beads for lithographical in-flow encapsulation.

The work presented in this thesis provides a new method for particle encapsulation, which has the potential to lead to a breakthrough solution in pharmaceutical engineering, cancer research, and tissue engineering.