THREE DIMENSIONAL CELL CULTURES IN A MICROSCALE FLUID HANDLING SYSTEM

摘要

The present invention provides a novel microscale fluid handling system for initiating, culturing, manipulating and assaying three-dimensional multicellular assembly. The system including a microfluidic device and three-dimensional multicellular tissue surrogate assembly. The device of the invention includes at least one microfluidic channel; and at least one chamber, wherein the walls of the chamber are lined with a cell layer; and wherein fluid medium flows through each of the channels and chambers. Also, disclosed are methods for using the device to introducing test agents to the multicellular assemblies to observe biological responses thereof.