Abstract

A Microfluidic Culturing and Real Time Monitoring Systems Using Diffusive Nutrition Distribution

Winnie Svendsen, Associate Professor, Technical University of Denmark

Cell culturing is largely performed in flasks, where cells grow on a plastic substrate in a static medium. This is quite unlike the in vivo situation, where nutrients and waste products are highly controlled by the body through blood flow. Although several cell culturing devices utilize flow, this is usually done in the same area where the cells grow, which increases the shear stress on the cells and removes any communication molecules produced by the cells. In this presentation a cell and tissue culturing platform will be presented that utilizes microfluidic flow as well as diffusion in order to deliver nutrients to the cells and remove any waste products. The platform is highly versatile and has been optimized using numerical simulations so that we are able to control the concentration of nutrients or other molecules at the culturing site by simply changing the flow rate. Neuronal cells, hippocampal brain slices as well as white blood cells have been successfully cultured on these devices. Moreover, the platform can be fitted with various sensors in order to measure relevant molecules (e.g. dopamine or glucose). Further plans include the incorporation of sensors for measuring TEER value during barrier formation.