microMAGNETOFLUIDICS · 3D-printed magnetic microfluidics for applications in life sciences

3D-printed magnetic microfluidics for applications in life sciences

The field of microfluidics is providing answers to several key questions in biology. Specifically, microfluidic single-cell analysis yields important insights into the heterogeneity of cells that is crucial for cancer research, regenerative medicine and drug development. Microfluidics has also emerged as a powerful tool to study single bacteria and to address questions concerning antibiotic persistence and the role of the microbiome in protecting against modern plagues such as cancer, autoimmune diseases and obesity. Despite its great potential, microfluidic technologies have not been widely adopted in mainstream biomedical research since they require a great deal of external equipment, which is often difficult to operate by untrained personnel. The aim of this project is to simplify fluid handling and single-cell studies by developing a microfluidic device that includes magnetic microvalves. These microvalves can be wirelessly actuated to generate compartments and isolate single cells. The magnetic microvalves will be integrated by means of a very recently available lithographic tool based on two-photon polymerization (2PP) with sub-diffraction limit resolution, which enables the fabrication of polymer-based 3D micro- and nano-architectures. The microMAGNETOFLUIDICS project is strongly interdisciplinary in nature where physics, materials science, and biology are strongly intertwined. The innovative character of this project is unprecedented since no previous studies have been reported on 3D printed magnetic microvalves operating within a microfluidic channel. The topic of the project is timely because it promotes the use of microfluidics among biologists and bacteriologists for decrypting cellular mechanisms at a single-cell level. The main scientific and training objectives of the project were: 1. to fabricate a microfluidic network of channels by soft lithography; 2. to fabricate magnetic microvalves by two-photon polymerization (2PP); 3. to isolate single cells, in particular bacterial cells. In summary, we successfully reported about single bacteria isolation. Moreover, in parallel we developed, for the first time, a new technique to 4D print polymeric structures at the microscale, i.e. 3D print soft structures with an embedded capability of spatiotemporal transformation. This achievement is a step forward in the field of small scale robots and paves the way to the fabrication of soft micro actuators and soft robotic components for future medical devices.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union