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High-throughput Microfluidic Production of Hydrogel Microspheres
This project involves engineering a droplet based microfluidic platform for high-throughput hydrogel microsphere synthesis to enable scalable production of dynamic tissue engineering scaffolds.
The miniaturization of polymeric hydrogel networks is of particular interest in the biomaterials community as it can mitigate the design limitations inherent to bulk hydrogels. To this end, hydrogel microspheres have shown their utility in 3D cell culture platforms, cell and drug delivery vehicles, and regenerative medicine. These materials are needed on the gram scale to ensure wide use in clinical applications.
Hydrogel microspheres can be templated via batch-based emulsion or microfluidic emulsion techniques where the formed water-in-oil droplets are cross-linked into viscoelastic networks. The major advantage of microfluidic platforms is the excellent size and shape control. In this context, we leverage the microfluidic templating method to obtain hydrogel microspheres with defined sizes. However, the current microfluidic chip design only allows droplet production rates of approximately 100 Hz. For efficient and practical use of the microspheres, up-scaling of the microfluidic production is essential.
During this project, we aim to address the scalability problem of the current microfluidic hydrogel production. Students will mainly be involved in design, engineering and testing of microfluidic flow focusing devices for high-throughput microsphere production.
The miniaturization of polymeric hydrogel networks is of particular interest in the biomaterials community as it can mitigate the design limitations inherent to bulk hydrogels. To this end, hydrogel microspheres have shown their utility in 3D cell culture platforms, cell and drug delivery vehicles, and regenerative medicine. These materials are needed on the gram scale to ensure wide use in clinical applications. Hydrogel microspheres can be templated via batch-based emulsion or microfluidic emulsion techniques where the formed water-in-oil droplets are cross-linked into viscoelastic networks. The major advantage of microfluidic platforms is the excellent size and shape control. In this context, we leverage the microfluidic templating method to obtain hydrogel microspheres with defined sizes. However, the current microfluidic chip design only allows droplet production rates of approximately 100 Hz. For efficient and practical use of the microspheres, up-scaling of the microfluidic production is essential. During this project, we aim to address the scalability problem of the current microfluidic hydrogel production. Students will mainly be involved in design, engineering and testing of microfluidic flow focusing devices for high-throughput microsphere production.
Engineering an existing microfluidic platform to enable high throughput production of hydrogel microspheres. The tasks will include AutoCAD design, photolithography and microfluidic device fabrication and testing. The students will be given necessary training for microfabrication techniques in ETH Hönggerberg. The results will be summarized in a report and a presentation.
Engineering an existing microfluidic platform to enable high throughput production of hydrogel microspheres. The tasks will include AutoCAD design, photolithography and microfluidic device fabrication and testing. The students will be given necessary training for microfabrication techniques in ETH Hönggerberg. The results will be summarized in a report and a presentation.
Interested students can contact Börte Emiroglu (boerte.emiroglu@chem.ethz.ch) and Prof. Mark Tibbitt (mtibbitt@ethz.ch).
Interested students can contact Börte Emiroglu (boerte.emiroglu@chem.ethz.ch) and Prof. Mark Tibbitt (mtibbitt@ethz.ch).