Characterization of an Electroactive polymer actuator in diaphragm micropump for organ-on-chip application

The existing drug development process is economically and scientifically challenging. It fails to efficiently emulate human physiology in-vitro with the current pre-clinical studies which includes in-vitro cell culture models and animal testing. Organ-on-Chip (OoC) technology aims to recreate an in-vivo like micro environment to investigate drug...

Design and Fabrication of Electrical Stimulation Set Up for EHT platform

The overarching goal of Engineered Heart Tissues (EHTs) is to develop functional 3D heart tissues in vitro with the potential to find drug targets, identify drug toxicity and predict the effects of the drugs in the body. This 3D model of the cardiac tissue consists of a bunch of cells, self-assembled around specific anchoring points the main aim...

Design and Development of Integrated Displacement Sensors for Engineered Heart Tissue Platforms

Cardiac cells derived from stem cells exhibit cellular contractions when cultured in vitro. They can be integrated with polymeric platforms consisting of micropillars, which act as anchors and pre-load for engineered heart tissue (EHT). The biomechanical response is often characterized using optical microscopy to track the displacement of pillar...

Portable Parameter Analyser for Organs-on-Chip: Power Budget Analyses

Problems in drug development and personalised disease treatments are the main impulse for the development of OoCs. At the Electronic Components, Technology and Materials (ECTM) group at TU Delft an OoC sensor has been developed and the design is now at a stage where a system can be developed to take the sensor out of the initial research...

Portable Parameter Analyser for Organs-on-Chip: Calibration and GUI

Until now parameter analysers for Organ-on-Chips (OoCs) have needed bulky multi-probe setups that do not fit in biological research labs. For this reason a bachelor graduation project was proposed to get one of the sensors designed by the Electronic Components, Technology and Materials group (ECTM) out of the lab and into the hands of potential...

Design of a valveless organ-on-chip micropump: A new take on on-chip actuation for organ-on-chip devices

In the last few years organ-on-chip (OoC) has been emerging as a new method for more reliable research to screen the effects of new drugs on the body. This is a novel technology mimicking the in vivo environment of tissue cells, making it a more suitable candidate for experimentation than traditional 2D cell cultures. However, in order to ensure...

Portable Parameter Analyser for Organs-on-Chip: Charge Sensor Model

Real-time cell culture media monitoring can be conducted by Organ-on-Chip (OoC) ion-sensitive floating-gate field-effect transistor based sensors (ISFGFET). A method of modelling the sensor is described and implemented in the Advanced Design System (ADS) design and simulation software. The model is validated using measurement data of the sensor...

A 3D microelectrode array to record neural activity at different tissue depths

Measuring neuronal responses along all three spatial dimensions is the next step, beyond the capacity of established 2D microelectrode arrays (MEAs), to record electric activity inside tissues with highly accurate spatial resolution. This research presents silicon-based planar arrays of 3D microelectrodes, whereby each microelectrode supports...

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...