Monolithic integration of a smart temperature sensor on a modular silicon-based organ-on-a-chip device

One of the many applications of organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technology is the study of biological processes in human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) during pharmacological drug screening. It is of paramount importance to construct OOCs equipped with highly compact in situ sensors that can accurately monitor, in real time, the extracellular...

Low-Impedance PEDOT:PSS MEA Integrated in a Stretchable Organ-on-Chip Device

We present the first Organ-on-Chip equipped with a low-impedance Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) MicroElectrode Array (MEA). The novel device allows simultaneous mechanical stimulation with a stretchable PDMS membrane and electrical monitoring via the PEDOT:PSS MEA of multiple in vitro cell cultures. The...

Organ-on-Silicon

The cost and the development time of pharamecutical products are often severely affected by the in vitro tests currently employed in pharmaceutical R&D. These assays are often failing to accurately recapitulate diseases and to predict human responses to new medicines. Organ-on-Chip (OOC) devices are designed to result in advanced in vitro...

Metal and Polymeric Strain Gauges for Si-based, Monolithically Fabricated Organs-on-Chips

Organ-on-chip (OOC) is becoming the alternative tool to conventional in vitro screening. Heart-on-chip devices including microstructures for mechanical and electrical stimulation have been demonstrated to be advantageous to study structural organization and maturation of heart cells. This paper presents the development of metal and polymeric...

A novel method to transfer porous PDMS membranes for high throughput Organ-on-Chip and Lab-on-Chip assembly

We present a novel method to easily and reliably transfer highly porous, large area, thin microfabricated Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) porous membranes on Lab-on-Chip (LOC) and Organ-on-Chip (OOC) devices. The use of silicon as carrier substrate and a water-soluble sacrificial layer allows a simple and reproducible transfer of the membranes to...

A multiwell plate Organ-on-Chip (OOC) device for in-vitro cell culture stimulation and monitoring

This work presents the first multi-well plate that allows for simultaneous mechanical stimulation and electrical monitoring of multiple in-vitro cell cultures in parallel. Each well of the plate is equipped with an Organ-on-Chip (OOC) device consisting of a stretchable micro-electrode array (MEA). For the first time, a film assisted molding ...

Microfabricated tuneable and transferable porous PDMS membranes for Organs-on-Chips

We present a novel and highly reproducible process to fabricate transferable porous PDMS membranes for PDMS-based Organs-on-Chips (OOCs) using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technologies. Porous PDMS membranes with pore sizes down to 2.0 μm in diameter and a wide porosity range (2–65%) can be fabricated. To overcome issues...

Cytostretch, an Organ-on-Chip Platform

Organ-on-Chips (OOCs) are micro-fabricated devices which are used to culture cells in order to mimic functional units of human organs. The devices are designed to simulate the physiological environment of tissues in vivo. Cells in some types of OOCs can be stimulated in situ by electrical and/or mechanical actuators. These actuations can mimic...

Fabrication and Characterization of an Upside-Down Carbon Nanotube Microelectrode Array

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are widely used in biological application to locally stimulate and record the electrical activity of living cells. Here, a novel fabrication process for a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based MEA integrated on the backside of a free standing stretchable membrane is reported. The new<br/>process flow overcomes the manually...

PEDOT:PSS: A Conductive and Flexible Polymer for Sensor Integration in Organ-on-Chip Platforms

Sensing and stimulating microstructures are necessary to develop more specialized and highly accurate Organ-on-Chip (OOC) platforms. In this paper, we present the integration of a conductive polymer, poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), on a stretchable membrane, core element of an Heart-on-Chip. The electrical...

Fabrication and characterization of an Upside-down CNT MEA

Over the last few years the need of new alternatives to traditional disease modelling, drug screening and toxicity tests has boosted the development of a new class of devices called Organ on Chip. These usually consist in a substrate or a well in which cells are cultured with the aim of differentiating them in a particular tissue lineage. With...