Project 12

microfluidic generation of alginate force PROBES to quantify intra-tumoral compression

(Dr. joseph chen, BE)

Cancer progression is highlighted by the emergence of aberrant mechanical features in the tumor microenvironment that present pathological signals to drive tumor malignancy. Alterations to extrinsic signals such as tumor ECM stiffness has been well described; however, the development of solid stresses within the tumor and its effect on tumor evolution is poorly understood. Recent reports have suggested that intra-tumoral stress guides cancer cell escape from tumors, highlighting an emergent mechanobiological driver of cancer progression; however, these aspects are difficult to investigate with standard in vitro tools and requires the development of advanced biophysical tools. The goal of this project is to establish a microfluidic platform that generates deformable, monodisperse, fluorescent alginate microbeads to quantify compressive stresses generated within a growing tumorsphere (Figure 1) [1]. The REU student will design the platform, define optimized flow parameters, characterize bead properties, embed probes into 3D tumorspheres, and quantify compression via finite element analysis (FEA). Students interested in BE, ME, ChE, or Bio would be excellent candidates.

References

[1] ZP. Fowler, C Harnett, and J Chen, “Microfluidic Generation of Alginate Beads to Quantify Intra-Tumoral Compressive Stress”, NNCI Nano + AM Summit (2023)

[2] E Mohagheghain, J Luo, J Chen, G Chaudhary, J Chen, J Sun, RH Ewoldt, and N Wang, “Quantifying compressive forces between living cell layers and within tissues using elastic round microgels”, Nature Communications (2018)