Tech Talk and Discussion
Sunday 9 December, 3:00pm – 4:00pm / Theater 1
Fine-tuning the mechanical and biochemical properties of in vitro microenvironments with a versatile and contactless photopatterning technology: PRIMO
Presenters:
In vivo, the cellular microenvironment has a crucial impact on the regulation of cell behavior and functions such as cellular differentiation, proliferation and migration. One of the challenges confronting cell biologists is to mimic this microenvironment in vitro to more efficiently study living cells and model diseases. Here we present PRIMO®: a versatile, contactless and maskless UV projection system, which allows to engineer custom in vitro microenvironments and fine-tune their topography and biochemistry in a highly flexible and reproducible manner.
We will first show that the projected UV light can be used in order to structure cell cuture substrates via photopolymerization of: (a) photosensitive resists to create molds onto which elastomeric solutions can be polymerized (microfabrication), (b) and of the most commonly used hydrogels (microstructuration). Then we will show that PRIMO® is a suitable tool to print biomolecules on all cell culture substrates (including glass, plastic, soft or stiff substrates, textured surfaces, etc.) with an exquisite control over protein densities (micropatterning).
Some of our users will then share their research works conducted with PRIMO, in cell biology and microfluidics, from sub-cellular to cell population levels: reconstitution of the cytoskeleton with purified proteins, focal adhesions, cytoskeleton organization, force measurement, single cell confinement in 3D, cell migration, tissue engineering, spheroid formation, etc.
