An on-chip microfluidic pressure regulator that facilitates reproducible loading of cells and hydrogels into microphysiological system platforms.

ABSTRACT: Coculturing multiple cell types together in 3-dimensional (3D) cultures better mimics the in vivo microphysiological environment, and has become widely adopted in recent years with the development of organ-on-chip systems. However, a bottleneck in set-up of these devices arises as a result of the delivery of the gel into the microfluidic chip being sensitive to pressure fluctuations, making gel confinement at a specific region challenging, especially when manual operation is performed. In this paper, we present a novel design of an on-chip regulator module with pressure-releasing safety microvalves that can facilitate stable gel delivery into designated microchannel regions while maintaining well-controlled, non-bursting gel interfaces. This pressure regulator design can be integrated into

SUBMITTER: Wang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4911208 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature