Design and Development of Mini-pulsar for Real-Time Bioelectric Experiment

Abstract

Investigation of the effect of pulsed electric field on eukaryotic cells has been of interest to biomedical scientists and researchers since a few decades. Reversible electroporation (EP) is used for uptake of chemicals, drugs, DNA into the eukaryotic cells under low electric field (100’s V/cm) of millisecond duration to few hundreds of microsecond duration. An electric field of nanosecond duration and a very high electric field (50’s kV/cm) can stress to intracellular organelles of eukaryotic cells and that can trigger apoptotic pathways. In this article experimental setup has been prepared for real-time investigation of the effect of nanosecond electric field on eukaryotic cells. Pulsar producing ~1.5kV, 20ns FWHM, single shot as well as ~10Hz rep-rate with rise-time as fast as ~10ns, has been prepared using blumlein pulse forming line and avalanche transistor switches. A 300μm gap microplate chamber has been prepared to expose the electric field to eukaryotic cells.