Cell and Tissue Handling and Culturing

Microfabricated and microfluidic tools for Cell and Tissue handling and culturing are important aspects of our expertise. This has enabled us to successfully serve medical devices, diagnostics and the pharmaceutical industry as clients who are looking into novel ways to manipulate cells and tissues, either as a part of the final product or as a part of product development and testing.

Our expertise in microtechnology and microfluidics has equipped our clients with tools to carry out:

Cell handling and culturing, in which a microfludic system is designed to enable:

• Movement of the cell of interest between different locations on the microfludic chip
  
• Rotation of the cell within a chamber
  
• Continuous flow around the cell
  
• Exchange of medium without disturbing the cell
  
• Cell sorting and counting
  

Tissue handling and culturing, in which microstructured surfaces and microfluidic environments are designed to enable:

• Specific direction of tissue growth
  
• Enhancement or suppression of tissue growth in a predictable fashion. Our microfabricated and microfluidic tools find use in a range of applications, including:
  
• Stem cell research and development
  
• IVF applications
  
• Drug delivery
  
• Drug development and testing
  
• Testing of implant devices in flow
  

Some of examples include:

• 1. Use of a microfluidic chip to manipulate a cell in a controlled flow. In order to better visualize the event, a bead, diameter 80µm, is gold coated on one side and rotated in a 200µm diameter chamber. Controlled rotation speed and direction can be adjusted using the MiniChemLab platform. The same response is obtained with the cell.
  
• 2. Use of microstructures to control thrombus formation in a microfluidic environment. Such capability may provide useful input in drug testing or performance testing of implants that are in contact with blood.
  
• 3. Use of microtextured substrates to control tissue growth and direction of the growth.