High‐Throughput Fabrication and Modular Assembly of 3D Heterogeneous Microscale Tissues. Issue 5 (11th November 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yang, Wenguang; Yu, Haibo; Li, Gongxin; Wang, Yuechao; Liu, Lianqing
• Is Part Of: Small. Volume 13:Issue 5(2017)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2016-11-11
• Subjects: microfabrication -- modular assembly -- tissue engineering; Nanotechnology -- Periodicals; Nanoparticles -- Periodicals; Microtechnology -- Periodicals; 620.5
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.201602769
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1613-6810

Abstract

Abstract : 3D hydrogel microstructures that encapsulate cells have been used in broad applications in microscale tissue engineering, personalized drug screening, and regenerative medicine. Recent technological advances in microstructure assembly, such as bioprinting, magnetic assembly, microfluidics, and acoustics, have enabled the construction of designed 3D tissue structures with spatially organized cells in vitro. However, a bottleneck exists that still hampers the application of microtissue structures, due to a lack of techniques that combined high‐throughput fabrication and flexible assembly. Here, a versatile method for fabricating customized microstructures and reorganizing building blocks composed of functional components into a combined single geometric shape is demonstrated. The arbitrary microstructures are dynamically synthesized in a microfluidic device and then transferred to an optically induced electrokinetics chip for manipulation and assembly. Moreover, building blocks containing different cells can be arranged into a desired geometry with specific shape and size, which can be used for microscale tissue engineering. Abstract : An easy‐to‐use and versatile method for the high‐throughput fabrication of hydrogel microstructures and the flexible assembly of 3D heterogeneous microscale tissues is demonstrated. The investigated system combines optofluidic maskless lithography and optically induced dielectrophoresis. The customized biomicrostructures are dynamically synthesized in a microfluidic device and then transferred to an optically induced electrokinetics chip for manipulation and assembly.