Microfluidics and droplet generation

Microfluidics can be utilized to produce large number of droplets in a controllable, biocompatible, and customizable manner. These droplets are applicable in a vast variety of biological applications to encapsulate cells, proteins, drugs, and other entities of interest. They can be generated with high monodispersity providing the ability to conduct statistical analysis on a large number of samples in different controllable conditions. As for tissue engineering studies, particle-based hydrogel biomaterials can be prepared by droplets of needed dimensions, compositions, and even shapes. These hydrogel droplets are considered as cell microcarriers of high surface-to-volume ratio with adjustable contents to simulate the required physiological conditions. More complex droplet structures can also be implemented using the microfluidic devices. The cells can be contained in or on the surface of droplets to be used as tissue building blocks. Droplets of appropriate structure provide the ability to co-culture different cell types. This in turn provides a method to evaluate cellar functions and stimulus-response and establish welldefined tissue models. Moreover, the droplets can be packed into engineered shells for targeted drug delivery applications. The shell components and the structure is designed so that the release process tasks place in a pre-defined manner where they reach the region of interest within the target tissue. The targeting itself may be achieved by functionalizing the surface of the droplets properly to get attracted only to the target area or by including traceable microparticles within them. Besides, microfluidic droplet generating systems can be used to facilitate conducting biological assays of much higher throughput, sensitivity, and speed.

Keywords:

Microfluidics , Droplet generation , Tissue engineering , Hydrogel droplets