Project Overview

Automating a microfluidic wound healing assay is a novel way of investigating the effects of a perpetual wound in epithelial cells. Currently, the microfluidic wound healing assay involves three pipette tip reservoirs with growth media, a converging three-channel PDMS microfluidic chip, a 3 mL plastic syringe, and a syringe pump. During a trypsinization, which removes cells in one-third of the channel, one has to quickly remove one of the pipette tips and replace it with a tip with trypsin. This method is not ideal as it poses the risk of air coming into the channel and it is tedious. The current prototype’s time length is short because of air bubble formation and turbulent flow mixing in the microfluidic chip. Also, the system prototype is disorganized leading to more turbulent flow. The goal of this project is to fix the prototype’s problems to be able to extend the assay’s time length. We will accomplish this by degassing the cell media to minimize air bubbles, dampen the force of the pinch valve to decrease mixing in the chip, and organize the system around the experiment’s microscope and computer to minimize human interaction. We will rebuild our system prototype and test for wound healing using various epithelial cell lines used in the lab of our client, Dr. Michael Murrell of the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Team Picture

Contact Information

Team Members

• Michael Martinez - Team Leader
• Ryan Lane - Communicator
• Ryan Rinehart - BSAC & BPAG
• Matthew Reagan - BWIG

Advisor and Client

• Prof. Tracy Jane Puccinelli - Advisor
• Prof. Michael Murrell - Client
• Prof. John Puccinelli - Alternate Contact

Related Projects

• Spring 2015: Collective cell migration and the perpetual wound
• Fall 2014: Collective cell migration and the perpetual wound
• Spring 2014: Collective cell migration and the perpetual wound