Micro fluidic System for Culturing and Monitoring of Neuronal Cells and Tissue

The aim of this Ph.D. project was to combine experience within cell and tissue culturing, electrochemistry and microfabrication in order to develop an in vivo-like fluidic culturing platform, challenging the traditional culturing methods. The first goal was to develope a fluidic system for culturing of brain tissue.

The second goal was to develop a sensor system with the potential for incorporation into both conventional culture systems and fluidic culturing systems. The third and final goal of this project was to develop a system for culturing of neuronal cells with the possibility of incorporating the developed sensor system.

The project was conducted in collaboration with researchers at KU to ensure that the end product is actually desired by the community. This thesis demonstrates some of the work carried out during the course of this Ph.D. project. First it describes culturing of primary neuronal cells on a Peptide Nano Wires (PNW) modified substrate aiming to bring conventional neuronal cultures closer to mimic the in vivo situation.

The work describes both the fabrication of the culture substrates and results comparing the performance of PNWcultured neurons and conventional cultures. Tests show that the function of neurons cultured on PNWs lies closer to neurons in vivo than neurons cultured on conventional plastic substrates. The second part of the thesis describes a fluidic system for culturing of brain slices.

It describes the fabrication and use of the system as well as results on culturing of hippocampal tissue slices.We found that the tissues cultured in the microfluidic system were of similar or better quality compared to tissues cultured conventionally. The third part of the thesis is about the development, characterisation and test of a membrane based sensor system.

As the membranes are used for culturing, the introduction of electrodes on these will allow for the real time measurement of relevant cell/tissue products during culturing. The last part of the thesis is about, i.e. the integration of the membrane based sensors with the fluidic system, in a way compatible with mass production.

The last part of this thesis also includes perspectives on how to expand the latest designed device to facilitate culturing of tissue and co-culturing of cells.