Microfluidic-Based Local Chemotherapy Treatment and Analysis of Cancer Cell Interactions

Since in vivo testing is mainly used to determine indices of therapeutic dosage this classic assessment of cancer treatments with drugs doesn't allow the monitoring of molecular level changes in the organism. Thereby, the development of technology that enables the study of molecular changes in cancerous cells will permit the analysis of cancer cell communication and cancer therapy effectiveness. A microfluidic device that could effectively localize a cancer treatment on a specific group of cells within a confluent culture while leaving another group untreated could perform such a function. The design used in this project enables the hydrodynamic focusing of drug treatment to create adjacent sections of treated and non-treated cells. Such features allow the analysis of interaction of cells post-treatment exposure as well as the off chip analysis of cancer tissue. This off chip analysis needs the optimum physical conditions to be reached. In order to have a maximum control over the microfluidic chip, variables such as hydrophobicity of the surface and optimum trypsin flow rate must be determined. In this project we aim to optimize these variables to have better control on the performance of the localized cell treatment we wish to accomplish.