Difference between revisions of "Team:BostonU HW/Collaborations"

Building an Estrogen Concentration Control Chip

SEPT - OCT 2016 | A collaboration with the MIT 2016 iGEM Wetlab Team

Our collaboration with the MIT iGEM team involved designing, creating, and controlling microfluidic devices to culture mammalian cells on chip. The end goal of these experiments was to lay the groundwork for testing endometrial cell lines and their response to various levels of estrogen in an automated microfluidic setting.

PART 1

In our first on-site visit, we designed and fabricated a microfluidic device with specific parameters fit to trapping the MIT team's mammalian HEK293 cells. Our first iteration of chip included an input, cell traps surrounded by two valves, and an output, as shown. We automated the control of the valves using our servo-syringe combination pumps. To prepare the chip for the cells, first, we opened our valves to flow 1.2mL of ethanol solution inside the chip for sterilization. Next, we pulled 1mL of PBS (buffer solution) to clean out the ethanol solution for the benefit of the cells. Finally, we pulled 1ml of cell solution with a concentration of 1 x 10^6 cells/ml through the microfluidic chip. The two valves were then closed (trapping the cells and culture media inside) and the chip removed from the control infrastructure. From there, we observed masses of cells moving in the sealed area of the chip under a standard light microscope at 10x, as shown. Finally, we relocated the chip an incubator to grow the cells. Unfortunately, the device dried out a day after being placed in the incubator. This visit proved our fabrication flow's ability to create microfluidic devices capable of trapping HEK293 mammalian cells, and gave both teams great insight on the other end of the biologist-microfluidics bridge, and sparked ideas for further customization of microfluidics for the lab bench. Highlighting the rapid design and prototyping enabled with Neptune, not a week later we returned with an entirely new design and batch of two chips ready for further testing (while our design and fabrication flow allows for iterations to occur within hours, the schedule of both teams needed about a week). This further collaboration is detailed below.

{attributions/disclaimer: Present were Shane McCormack, Priya Kapadia, and mentor Radhakrishna Sanka of the BU iGEM HW team, as well as Wangui Mbuguiro and mentor Brian Teague of the MIT iGEM team. All handling of biological materials performed by Wangui Mbuguiro of the MIT iGEM team}

PART 2

Part 2 Content