Cancer is a major health concern that effects millions of people worldwide. The main contributing factor to the deadliness of the disease is cancer metastasis, where the cancer cells break away from the primary tumor site, transmigrate through the endothelium, and form secondary tumors in distant areas. Many studies have identified links between the mechanical properties of the cellular microenvironment and the behavior of cancer cells. Also, nanobiotechnology and bioMEMS have had a tremendous impact on biosensing in the areas of cancer cell detection and therapeutics, disease diagnostics, and DNA analysis. Most current technologies enable observation of only the population-level average and often ignore the vast degree of cell heterogeneity present even in clonal populations.

This research work focuses on four areas: 1) Simulation and Development of solid-state field-effect transistors with micropillared gates for sensing of cancer cell ion exchange; 2) Synthesis and surface functionalization of nanoporous PLGA microparticles; 3) Glioblastoma multiforme heterogeneity profiling with solid-state micropores; 4) Microfluidic approach to create microencapsulation for single cell confinements. This dissertation provides a new multidisciplinary approach to detect and analyze cancer cell in a population of background cells, and understanding the fundamental molecular bioelectricity of cellular processes can open up a new cell sequencing and cytometry methods of research previously not perceived with older technologies.

These approaches showed an ability to isolate and study a single cell behavior and can be potentially used in the lab on a chip system. Overall, our novel approaches to study cell behavior are simple, reliable, low cost, and do not damage cells.