Microfluidics based cell-cell interaction model

• Main Author: Bak Thavatchalam, Subhashree
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/61107
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Micro fluidics is a term which defines the technology that is a combination of fluid mechanics, biology and chemistry .This technology facilitates the flow of micro and nano scale volumes through the miniaturized channels for many biological applications. The purpose of this study is to target at one of the upcoming research field (i.e.) the in vitro diagnostics for co-culture systems. The combination of the micro fluid platform along with cell culture to study the cell-cell interaction facilitates the complex interactions between the cancer cells and human stromal cells that occur during metastasis in vitro is an example of cell-cell interaction which is quite difficult to understand, so a micro fluidic model that provides better understanding of the invasion of the cancer cells is needed. In this study such a microfuidic chip has been developed whereby the bone marrow stromal cells have been cultured within the chip in a 3D microenvironment. This chip can be used to study various phenomena like cell-cell interactions, cell-matrix interactions, cell migration, etc. The results obtained from this study forms the milestone for the future potential bio mimetic micro systems as a replacement of lab animals in in vitro diagnostics.