Abstract

Enhance Culture and Control of MSCs and Neurons in Microfluidic Environment

Yilei Zhang, Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, NTU

Cells are strongly affected by the physical and chemical properties in their neighborhood, such as morphology, proliferation, differentiation. One powerful tool to control the microenvironment and affect cellular behaviors is microfluidic device, which is frequently based on PDMS. By controlling PDMS surface functionalization and stiffness, we studied the cellular responses to the microenvironmental cues after a long term culture in term of adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, stiffness for MSC, neurite morphology and network formation for neurons.