Application: Clearing

One application for stochastic electrotransport is tissue clearing. We use the detergent SDS to remove light-scattering lipids from the tissue. This process can be sped up by speeding up the transport of SDS into and lipids out of the tissue. In a higher level of abstraction, it is simply a process where electromobile particles are transported into and out of tissues, and we can do this quickly and nondestructively using stochastic electrotransport.

We developed a specialized device to carry out this task:

The device is simpler than it seems. The key is that the tissue is placed between the electrodes. This tissue is then rotated to create a rotational electric field. With the right conditions, you can clear tissues quite rapidly, without harming the tissue at all.