Abstract

Wound Healing-on-a-Chip: The Long and Painful Road From Lab Prototypes to Industrial Manufacturing Applications

Peter Ertl, Professor of Lab-on-a-Chip Systems, Vienna University of Technology

All wound healing assays are based on the inherent ability of adherent cells to proliferate and move into adjacent cell-free areas, thus providing information on cell viability, cellular mechanisms and multicellular movements. Despite their wide-spread use for toxicological screening, biomedical research and pharmaceutical studies, to date no satisfactory technological solutions are available that allow for the automated, miniaturized and integrated induction of defined wounds.  To bridge this technological gap we have developed (1) a lab-on-a-chip capable of mechanically inducing circular cell-free areas within 2D and 3D cell cultures and (2) a personalized companion diagnostic tool for individualized therapy solutions for chronic wounds. In this presentation both microfluidic systems and their applications for wound healing research as well as device translation and scale up manufacturing issues will be discussed.