Design and Fabrication of a Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for Organ-on-Chips Platforms

Cell behavior in vitro can be regulated by mechanical stimulation. Cytostretch is an Organ-on-Chip (OOC) platform that allows cyclic stretching tissue in culture. Its pneumatic actuation can hinder it from microfluidic systems integration. A dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) was developed and fabricated in this thesis for Cytostretch as an...

Heart-on-chip: functional lipoprotein lipase (LPL) expression in co-cultures of cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells

Introduction | Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the number one cause of death worldwide. Individuals with a high risk of developing CVD are nowadays mainly treated with cholesterol lowering drugs. Although disease risk can be lowered by a maximum of 40% in this way, a significant untreatable residual risk is left. Therefore, there is a big...

A CMOS process compatible charge-modulated FGFET based ion sensor for integration into Organ-on-Chip platforms

Drug development is an entire area of research that partly exploits the developments from biomedical research. Understanding the diseases that affect humanity fatally is critical to our existence. Researchers have studied various molecules and genetic compounds that are responsible for the proliferation of these diseases in the human body. For...

Polymer Microfabrication Modules for Cytostretch Organ-on-chip Applications

The use of conventional biological assay tools, such as Petri dish, has hindered the drug discovery studies ineffective and time-consuming. To cope with this problem, organ-on-chip (OOC) devices have been developed. Modeling organ functionality, topography, and pathology, OOC devices are expected to pave the way the drug discovery processes....

Manufacturing of a polymeric membrane with integrated porous electrode

A manufacturing technology is proposed to manufacture polymeric membrane scaffolds for culturing of cells, tissues, and organoids with integrated sensor capabilities and fluidic functionalities. A multilayer substrate is imprinted with a soft mold to manufacture polymeric membrane scaffolds for culturing of cells, tissues, and organoids with...

Fabrication and Characterization of PEDOT coated Microelectrodes Array for Organ-on-Chip Application

Organ-on-Chips (OOCs) are micro-fabricated devices that combine micro-engineering with in-vitro cell culturing. This combination results in an in-vitro model that mimics the minimal functional unit of a human organ. OOC devices are expected to provide accurate and predictive screening tools that will eventually reduce false negatives and false...