Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University

Manipulations of prepolymer hydrogel droplets and cells are demonstrated on an electromicrofluidic platform to construct a complex and heterogeneous microenvironment for cell culture. 3D hydrogel building blocks with reorganized cells or particles are formed and assembled on the electromicrofluidic platform adopting electrowetting and dielectrophoresis. We demonstrate the manipulations of varied objects (a) in multiple phases such as prepolymer liquid hydrogel droplets and crosslinked hydrogels, (b) on a wide range of scales from micrometer cells or particles to millimeter assembled hydrogel architectures, and (c) with diverse properties such as conductive and dielectric prepolymer droplets that are photo, chemically, or thermally crosslinkable. 3D hydrogel architectures, composed of (i) varied particles or cells reorganized in programmable patterns and (ii) biomimetic hydrogels of designed properties and in adjustable geometries, are obtained. The electromicrofluidic platform is generic and alternative to manipulate cells and hydrogel for reconfigurable 3D architectures.

 

Reference:

1. M.-Y. Chiang, Y.-W. Hsu, H.-Y. Hsieh, S.-Y. Chen, S.-K. Fan*, “Constructing 3D heterogeneous hydrogels from electrically manipulated prepolymer droplets and crosslinked microgels,”Science Advances, vol. 2, 2016, e1600964.

2. Shoji Takeuchi, “Materials science: Versatile gel assembly on a chip,”Nature,vol. 541, 2017, 470-471.

3. Science News coverage, “Video: Creating artificial tissues just got easier, thanks to this Tetris-like building technique,”http://bit.ly/2eMuUcv.

 

Shih-Kang Scott Fan is Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department and Researcher of the Center for Biotechnology in National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan. He is known for his contributions in electrowetting, electro-microfluidics, tissue engineering, and in vitro diagnosis. He is the recipient of several awards, including the “Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (吴大猷先生纪念奖)” from National Science Council (2011), the “Research Award for Junior Research Investigators” (年轻学者研究着作奖) from Academia Sinica (2012), the “Young Scholar’s Creativity Award” (年轻学者创新奖) from Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (2014), the “TBF Chair in Biotechnology” (TBF生技讲座) from Taiwan Bio-Development Foundation (2104), and “Outstanding Research Award”(杰出研究奖) from Ministry of Science and Technology (2017). He was elected Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016. He also served in professional societies and conferences. He was General Chair of the International Conference on Optofluidics and the International Meeting on Electrowetting.