Manipulation of micro-carriers and the application for micro-machine, DDS

Recently, the manipulation techniques of micro-carriers have been noted in Lab-On-Chip technology and micro total analysis systems as well as drug delivery system. This paper reviews dynamic manipulation techniques and sensing system of micro-carriers. The techniques include beads-handling by optical tweezers and magnetic tweezers, and electrophoresis and magnetic control of micro-carriers. Especially, the application of magnetic carriers is mainly focused. The most attractive advantage of the magnetic carriers is ease of separation, rapidity and efficiency of the process. The application of bacterial magnetic particles, which are obtained from magnetic bacteria, is introduced as a functional magnetic material, further advantages of magnetic manipulation using bacterial magnetic particles are also discussed.