Microwell Arrays For High Resolution Assay of Rare Cells in a Complex Cell Mixture

Microfabrication tools have been widely used to create microenviroments to culture and study a large variety of cell types. These microenviroments are usually tiny wells built on an adherent substrate where cells can be sorted and physically isolated from each other. Using this technique one can study individual cell behavior, cell-cell communication, migration and many other facets of cell biology. I work in a multidisciplinary project co-advised by Prof. Paula Hammond and Prof. Linda Griffith to create microenviroments that will allow us to parse and study rare cells in complex populations, such as progenitor cells from aspirated bone marrow. Another facet of our work is to study human endometrial cells to understand the mechanism that leads to one of the most painful and somewhat unknown women’s disease called endometriosis, where cells from the peritoneal cavity migrate to other tissues in the women’s body causing a lot of pain, and in some cases infertility. By using our microfabrication tools, we aim to be able to isolate and study endometrial cells in order to understand what leads these cells to invade other tissues and develop lesions.