It’s almost fall semester and Team Micro is gearing up for our final year in our project in preparation for our senior thesis!
This past year, with the support of our sponsors from our Launch UMD campaign in October, our team achieved many important milestones. We were able to modify our manufacturing process with further testing and trials, allowing us to develop a more physiologically relevant design. With this we were able to successfully print a fenestrated tube inside the microchannel in our device. This better resembles the fenestration of the liver sinusoid that allows nutrients to flow to the cells surrounding it-- the environment we aim to mimic with our model. We also had the opportunity to present our research at Gemstone annual Junior Colloquia in November, where we were able to display our progress in research thus far. In the spring semester, we had the chance to present a poster of our research at Undergraduate Research Day alongside the other Gemstone teams in our cohort. This fall semester is set to bring many new strides for our team as well. Our abstract, “Designed Fenestration of a Nano 3D Printed Liver Sinusoid on a Chip” was recently accepted for a poster presentation at The 22nd Annual Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (MicroTAS) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan! The conference will continue in the series of conferences to serve as the premier forum for reporting research results in microfluidics, microfabrication, and nanotechnology for life sciences and chemistry. We are eagerly looking forward to sending two of our hardworking team members, Katherine and Morgan, to present our research at the conference on behalf of our team in November. To continue our research further this fall, our Cells sub-team will begin culturing liver cells in our devices to observe their behavior in the microfluidic environment. This will allow us to improve our model design even further, providing us data to assure us of its stability and biocompatibility. Alongside this process, our fabrication sub-teams will continue refining our design and manufacturing chips to eventually achieve a design that is both an optimal environment for the cells as well as easily reproducible. We greatly appreciate the support from our Launch UMD sponsors that has helped us continue to make strides in our research. We can’t wait to further update you on our progress and conference in the fall semester and we look forward to presenting our research at Gemstone Senior Thesis Conference on April 12, 2019!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2018
Categories |