Principal Investigator Luis Velasquez-Garcia (Heller)
Inherent challenges in device fabrication have impeded the widespread adoption of microfluidic technologies in the clinical setting. Additive manufacturing could address the constraints associated with traditional microfabrication, enabling greater microfluidic design complexity, fabrication simplification (e.g., removal of alignment and bonding process steps), manufacturing scalability, and rapid and inexpensive design iterations.
We have fabricated an entirely 3-D-printed microfluidic platform enabling the modeling of interactions between tumors and immune cells, providing a microenvironment for testing immunotherapy treatment efficacy. The monolithicplatform allows for real-time analysis of interactions between a resected tumor fragment and resident or circulating lymphocytes in the presence of immunotherapy agents. The high-resolution, non- cytotoxic, transparent device monolithically integrates a variety of microfluidic components into a single chip, greatly simplifying device operation when compared to traditionally-fabricated microfluidic systems. Human tumor fragments can be kept alive within the device. In addition, the tumor fragment within the devicecanbeimagedwithsingle-cellresolutionusing confocal fluorescence microscopy.