For over two decades, researchers at IIT Kharagpur have been working on the development of affordable, portable and remote technology in the healthcare domain. The School of Medical Science and Technology and the Microfluidics Lab at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering have collaborated on several such projects.
In a similar work research scholar, Jyotsana Priyadarshani is pursuing her PhD in the area of “organ-on-a-chip” under the supervision of Prof. Soumen Das at the School of Medical Science & Technology and Prof. Suman Chakraborty at the Microfluidics Lab.
Her research focuses on utilizing the frugal fabrication technique and microfluidic applications to address the important features and geometrical complexities of microvasculature in vitro. Such bioengineered microfluidic platforms are potentially suitable for probing cellular dynamics as well as offering critical insights into cancer, cardiovascular diseases, offsetting the requirements of in vivo trials on animals and humans to a large extent.
Here is an interview on “Vigyan Patrika”, Jyotsana talks about her recently published paper titled “Transport of vascular endothelial growth factor dictates on-chip angiogenesis in tumor microenvironment” in Physics of Fluids journal.
Read Full interview: https://biopatrika.com/2021/04/16/interview-biomimetic-organ-chip-drug-screening/
Paper Abstract:
On-chip investigations on tumor angiogenesis, hallmarked by the growth of new blood vessels from preexisting ones, have attracted significant interest in recent times, due to their exclusive capabilities of probing the detailed mechanisms of chemokine transport and visualization of cell-cell interactions that are otherwise challenging to capture and resolve under in vivo conditions. Here, we present a simulation study mimicking tumor angiogenesis microenvironment on-chip, with a vision of establishing the favorable conditions for stable and uniform gradients of vascular endothelial growth factor that plays a pivotal role in tumor progression. The model platform addresses different responses of endothelial cells such as chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and mitosis, under combined convection-diffusion transport in a micro-confined fluidic environment constituting collagen-based extracellular matrix. The model predictions emerge to be consistent with reported in vitro angiogenesis experiments and hold potential significance for the design of organ-on-a-chip assays, disease modeling, and optimizing anti-angiogenic therapies.
Citation: , “Transport of vascular endothelial growth factor dictates on-chip angiogenesis in tumor microenvironment” , Physics of Fluids 33, 031910 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0042487