Abstract

Microfluidics as an Enabling Technology For Monitoring Liver Tissue Behaviour

Elisabeth Verpoorte, Professor, Pharmaceutical Analysis, University of Groningen

Microfluidics is in many ways a mature technology when it comes to culturing cells and tissue for physiological studies of healthy and diseased organ models in vitro. The idea that a researcher can manipulate the cellular microenvironment more effectively in small microchannels than larger containers has been well established in the organ-on-a-chip concept. The fluid handling control that is inherent to microfluidics has also been exploited to develop dynamic experiments in which conditions are changed precisely over time. Moreover, flow can be managed in such a way that medium can be continuously delivered to built-in sensors and/or external analysis systems, enabling quantitative monitoring of physiological processes. In this presentation, I will talk about some recent work we have done together with various partners in which we exploit microfluidics to achieve new analytical approaches to more comprehensively understand the behavior of precision-cut liver slices in vitro.