I-Corps: 3D Curvature-Defined Microenvironments for Cell and Tissue Culturing

Florida Institute Of Technology, Melbourne FL

Investigators

Abstract

Cell engineering (stem cell technology and cell sorting) has been receiving increased attention due to its wide and promising applications in disease diagnosis and treatment, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. The behavioral responses of cells to three-dimensional (3D) micromechanical environments are of special interest in recent years because the environments of cells in vivo are 3D in nature. 3D micromechanical environments are much more challenging to design, fabricate, characterize, and apply for fruitful cell studies and applications compared with the corresponding two-dimensional (2D) ones. The curvature of a 3D substrate on which a cell will be growing is one of the major geometrical parameters of this substrate, and therefore, creating curvature-defined 3D cell culture substrates is crucial for 3D cell mechanobiology and bioengineering. This team has invented a first-ever unique and powerful class of 3D curvature-defined cell culture substrates - micro glass ball embedded gels. This technology opens up countless opportunities for the field of cell and tissue engineering and its biomedical applications. The objective of this NSF I-Corps Teams project is to start the process to promote and commercialize this newly-invented and patented technology. The class of cell culture substrates, micro glass ball embedded gels, introduced in this NSF I-Corps Teams project provides a unique and useful tool for studying cell and tissue mechanobiological responses to substrate curvatures and local stiffness, and for other related cell and tissue engineering researches and biomedical applications. Specifically, this technology provides the first-ever cell culture substrates with defined curvatures. The effect of substrate curvature is one of the fundamental aspects in the currently cutting-edge and very hot area of research: cell and tissue mechanobiology and bioengineering. This technology also provides the first-ever cell culture substrates with defined nanometer to micrometer scale stiffness patterns. These substrates and the similar ones prepared/fabricated by the same strategy can be used in or extended to any other studies involving micro- and nanocomposites and interfacial phenomena. The method, introduced in this project, to prepare/fabricate micro glass ball embedded gels, opens a new strategy and is transformative for micro- and nanofabrication of even or uneven regular or irregular shaped (substrate) surfaces or arrays or patterns or composites.