A contact line pinning based microfluidic device for the studies of cancer cell migration and morphology

Our Bio-MEMS works employ cleanroom micro-fabrication methods to develop new microfluidic devices that can be used to study biological phenomena. We have two devices at work. The first one uses contact line pinning to confine collagen in a wall-less channel, so a well-controlled interstitial flow can be applied to the 3D cell-embedded matrix. We have used this device to study the effects of interstitial flows on morphology and migration behaviors.

Left: a schematic of the contact line pinning device with interstitial flows. Right: Micrograph of a cell embedded collagen matrix. Red dots denote elongated cells, blue dots demote round cells. Scale bar: 100 micrometer

Publications:

1. Chih-kuan Tung, Oleh Krupa, Elif Apyadin, Jr-Jiun Liou, Anthony Diaz-Santana, Beum Jun Kim, and Mingming Wu, A contact line pinning based microfluidic platform for modeling physiological flows, Lab-on-a-chip, doi: 10.1039/C3LC50489A, accepted (2013).