Cell Culture on a Chip – Possibilities and Technologies by Applying Micro and Nanotechnology

27 Mar 2012, at 13:30-17:00 in Edinburgh

Cell culture on chips has large possibilities for biologists to make cutting edge science. Cell culture is a central method for molecular biology of organisms. The method is used in pharma industry as well as in universities. Yet, the method has not changed significantly the last many decades. In this course a participant will learn the recent and very exciting advances in cell culture on chip technology. The course will address several limitation in standard technologies currently used in biologists labs and how micro- and nanotechnology can be applied to go beyond these limitations. The technical solutions to a problem will however also be critically discussed from a biologist stand point related to issues such as usability, biocompatibility and possibilities to compare to other results.

Cell culture on chip:

Benefits on miniturization and perfusion cell cultures:

Precise control over culture conditions (unlike batch cultures)
Possibility to resemble in vivo situation such as gradients
High lights from the literature of “clever” chip designs

Examples of new biology learned with microfluidics tools.

Migration
Gradients
High lights from the literature of enabling chip designs

Consideration for building cell culture systems and chip:

Compatibility with biolab workflows
Material use and Biocompatibility
Optics and instrument integration

Single cell analysis on chip

Reasons and problems
Designs of chips enabling singe cell analysis

High throughput systems

Designs and possibilities
Comparison with state of the art microtitre plate assays