Indexed by:Conference Paper

Date of Publication:2018-01-01

Volume:2018-June

Page Number:1137-1141

Abstract:Dynamic biochemical signals play important regulatory roles in cellular physiological status. As the extracellular environments are very complex, it is difficult to monitor the dynamic biochemical signals in vivo. The microfluidic platform offers new opportunities for generating dynamic biochemical signals in vitro, while existing microfluidic chips always have the limitation of sluggish response times. Here, we report a novel microfluidic chip that can rapidly control dynamic biochemical signals according to the principles of fluid mechanics and mass transport. This microfluidic chip is integrated with a "Christmas tree" structure used to generate linear concentration gradient and a Y-shaped microchannel used to control dynamic biochemical signals. We perform both theoretical analysis and computational fluid dynamic simulations to validate our chip design, and find that the response time to facilitate dynamic concentration gradient is reduced in 1-2 orders of magnitude in contrast to existing devices. Experiments are also being conducted to further demonstrate the validation. Our proposed microfluidic chip can support an ideal platform for studying cell dynamic response in vitro.