Enabling actuation and sensing in organs-on-chip using electroactive polymers

•Actuation has been succesfully performed for 2h30 with no side effects nor<br/>delimination of the human tissue <br/>•0.1 % strain has been achieved during the actutaion mode, close to the<br/>strain experienced in vivo by vSMCs <br/>•0.72 V/mm sensitivity has been shown on the sensing mode <br/>•Batch fabrication and downscaling will be...

Rapid Prototyping of Organ-on-a-Chip Devices Using Maskless Photolithography

Organ-on-a-chip (OoC) and microfluidic devices are conventionally produced using microfabrication procedures that require cleanrooms, silicon wafers, and photomasks. The prototyping stage often requires multiple iterations of design steps. A simplified prototyping process could therefore offer major advantages. Here, we describe a rapid and...

Manufacturing thin ionic polymer metal composite for sensing at the microscale

Ionic polymer metal composites (IPMCs) are a class of materials with a rising appeal in biological micro-electromechanical systems (bio-MEMS) due to their unique properties (low voltage output, bio-compatibility, affinity with ionic medium). While tailoring and improving actuation capabilities of IPMCs is a key motivator in almost all IPMC...

Ionic polymer metal composite-based microfluidic flow sensor for bio-MEMS applications

Sensing flow rates in structured microenvironments like lab-on-chip (LOC) and organ-on-chip (OoC) is crucial to assess important parameters such as transport of media and molecules of interest. So far, these micro-electromechanical systems for biology (bio-MEMS) mostly rely on flow sensing systems based on thermal sensors. However, thermal...

Microelectromechanical Organs-on-Chip

Stemming from the convergence of tissue engineering and microfluidics, organ-on-chip (OoC) technology can reproduce in vivo-like dynamic microphysiological environments for tissues in vitro. The possibility afforded by OoC devices of realistic recapitulation of tissue and organ (patho)physiology may hold the key to bridge the current...

Enabling actuation and sensing in organs-on-chip using electroactive polymers

Organ-on-chip (OoC) devices are in rising demand for high-throughput and low-cost development and toxico-logical screening of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, as they accurately mimic in vitro physiological conditions as in the human body. In particular, OoCs are urgently needed for screening cardiovascular drug toxicity. Physiological relevance...