Project number
21037
Organization
UA Department of Biomedical Engineering
Academic year
2020-2021
Project Goal: Design a user-friendly, time-efficient platform that uses a culture of up to six individual three-dimensional cellular structures for drug screening, personalized medicine or disease modeling.
Accurate 3D cell culturing for drug screening, personalized medicine or disease modeling can be tedious and biologically complex.
The Apparatus to Simulate Tumor Environment and Reproduce Organs Using an Interactive and Dynamic System, or ASTEROIDS, platform aims to simplify this process using two perfused chambers separated by two membranes on which cells can be seeded and mimic vascular and connective compartments.
While the currently used ASTEROIDS platform is effective for singular experimental trials, it must fit within an incubator with several pumps and tubing/connectors attached to other laboratory equipment. This new design accommodates up to six ASTEROIDS chips in a single experiment. This platform uses a custom chip holder, growth media heater and heating element to ensure the optimum thermodynamic environment of 37 ± 0.5 degrees Celsius.
Accurate 3D cell culturing for drug screening, personalized medicine or disease modeling can be tedious and biologically complex.
The Apparatus to Simulate Tumor Environment and Reproduce Organs Using an Interactive and Dynamic System, or ASTEROIDS, platform aims to simplify this process using two perfused chambers separated by two membranes on which cells can be seeded and mimic vascular and connective compartments.
While the currently used ASTEROIDS platform is effective for singular experimental trials, it must fit within an incubator with several pumps and tubing/connectors attached to other laboratory equipment. This new design accommodates up to six ASTEROIDS chips in a single experiment. This platform uses a custom chip holder, growth media heater and heating element to ensure the optimum thermodynamic environment of 37 ± 0.5 degrees Celsius.