2-12-2010

Feb. 12. 2010

· Journal club: Hiro present an interesting paper from nature materials titled: ‘Dynamic display of biomolecular patterns through an elastic creasing instability of stimuli-responsive hydrogels’. Interesting achievements have been made on thermal stimulation of the hydrogel materials which can fold into 3D creases based on the underlining topological patternings. The method can potentially be used to thermal responsive structures with other applications such as microwell.

· Seila presented her first report on her expected work. She has formed a proposal on microfluidic-driven assembly of two types of hydrogel potentially as a co-culture systems with direct control of the soluble factor delivery and dynamic culturing microenvironents. Suggestions include how to justify the application and advantages of the microfluidic driven assembly vs. other microscale technologies. She will be also involved into the WonGu’s previous project together with other people to form gradient using the microvaving systems.

· Manideep will try to do co-culture of HepG2 and HUVEC cells to form aggregates for assembly. He expects vascularization to occur which will facilitate the mass transfer of this thick tissue construct.

· Sang Bok is searching literature and forming idea to achieve real-time monitoring of the beating of the cardiac cells (such as visualization or monitoring the Ca²⁺ ions). He is also doing simulation on the microvavling project to provide theoretical explanation for the 3D mixing of the two flow streams in the microfluidic device

· Nasser is still doing literature review on the application of hydrogel for bone tissue engineering.