Automatic Egg-Cell Gathering by Two Versatile Miniature Robots and a Miniature Pump on an Inverted Microscopy

Abstract

In this paper, we have described automatic gathering with visual feedback of egg-cells by 2 miniature robots. Generating a transgenic mouse is one of the most important operations in the bio-medical field. Sometimes scientists need several hundreds of egg-cells for only 1 experiment. However, conventional manipulators are designed for only DNA-injecting, and they are not useful devices for gathering egg-cells. To support the DNA-injecting operation, we have proposed the automatic gathering of egg-cells by 2 miniature robots and a miniature pump. In several experiments, we have checked the efficiency and confirmed that our device has good feasibility to support egg-cell processing. We have also proposed a 5 pipettes’ egg-cell processing method using miniature robots to realize multi-functional and flexible egg-cell processing.