Dispositivos médicos para dispensado / extracción basados en micronanotecnología

The present thesis deals with the design, fabrication, packaging and characterization of polymer SU-8 made microprobes for medical applications. At present, there is a huge variety of probes for recording, stimulation and drug delivery; however, still some improvements have been demanded by physicians and biologists in relation with their size and structural material. Here, microprobes based on the SU-8 technology have been developed in order to overcome the current limitations. Firstly, accurate designs have been established, then reproducible fabrication procedures have been developed and finally the probes have been packaged in order to connect the miniaturized device with the outside. The effectiveness of this technology is then checked with the electric and fluidic characterization of the probe and, finally, experimental tests in living tissues are carried out in order to verify the real capability of the microprobes. The application of the probes is focused towards two biomedical fields: 1) the monitorization of a living tissue such as a kidney and 2) the recording of action potentials and drug delivery in neural tissue.