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Microfluidic & nanofluidic technologies for chemistry, physics, biology, and bioengineering



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Paper

Lab Chip, 2008, 8, 1056 - 1061, DOI: 10.1039/b804234a

Stop-flow lithography to generate cell-laden microgel particles

Priyadarshi Panda, Shamsher Ali, Edward Lo, Bong Geun Chung, T. Alan Hatton, Ali Khademhosseini and Patrick S. Doyle

Encapsulating cells within hydrogels is important for generating three-dimensional (3D) tissue constructs for drug delivery and tissue engineering. This paper describes, for the first time, the fabrication of large numbers of cell-laden microgel particles using a continuous microfluidic process called stop-flow lithography (SFL). Prepolymer solution containing cells was flowed through a microfluidic device and arrays of individual particles were repeatedly defined using pulses of UV light through a transparency mask. Unlike photolithography, SFL can be used to synthesize microgel particles continuously while maintaining control over particle size, shape and anisotropy. Therefore, SFL may become a useful tool for generating cell-laden microgels for various biomedical applications.

Graphical abstract image for this article (ID: b804234a)