Juncker Lab

Can 3D printed scaffolds replace PDMS for organ-on-a-chip, cell and tissue engineering? Our latest paper (link in comments) makes some surprising findings. 3D stereolithography printing has made great strides, and many efforts have been dedicated to create scaffolds that could replace PDMS as a material for cell culture. PDMS has many things going for it. It is easy to mold and replicate, it spontaneously seals to glass, is transparent, inert, and crucially for cell culture, it is gas permeable. Many of us who do photoink 3D printing work with low molecular weight PEGDA, which is inert, low viscosity, and can be rapidly printed into transparent, water impermeable constructs with a plastic-like feeling to them. However could PEGDA be used for culturing cells, especially as plastics are not gas permeable, and as PEG is known for its antiadhesive properties that repells molecules and cells alike. In our latest paper, we added between 10% and 30% of a low molecular weight PEG porogen to PEGDA to produce a nanoporous PEDGA, and make some interesting and surprising findings. While initially we thought that the nanoporous network was connected, we came to the conclusion that it was instead isolated pores as fluroescent dyes barely diffuse through it. At 10% porogen concentration, we made the suprising finding that a variety of cells adhered to the nanoporous PEGDA, and that it was highly biocompatible, predisposing it for use in OOC, cell culture and tissue engineering. But maybe the most interesting finding is that with 10% porogen, the nanoporous PEG had an oxygen permeability equal to the one of PDMS, and that it became even more permeable with higher 20% and 30% porogen. Hence we believe nanoporous PEGDA could replace PDMS for many applications that require gas exchange, notably when microfluidic channels come into play. We further show the potential of Nanoporous PEGDA for OoC applications by co-culturing a spheroid with stromal cells, and observing cell interaction and migration, as well as with endothelial cells where we observe the formation of blood vessels. More work is needed to quantify the gas permeability and how process parameters may affect it, but we are already convinced that it will open many new opportunities for 3D cell culture and OoC. As always, big thanks and shout out to all Juncker Lab students and Postdocs who worked on this: Vahid KaramZadeh, Ph.D., Molly Shen, Houda Shafique, Felix Lussier 👏

Happy belated birthday, Hugues! We celebrated with a delicious strawberry shortcake by Molly! 😋

I'm delighted to share the publication of my latest and final piece of research from my PhD work, titled "Nanoporous, Gas Permeable PEGDA Ink for 3D Printing Organ-on-a-Chip Devices," now published in the Journal of Advanced Functional Materials (Impact Factor: 19). In our study, we introduced a porous PEGDA resin (P-PEGDA) with exceptional biocompatibility and oxygen permeability, comparable to PDMS. Utilizing P-PEGDA, we 3D-printed complex microstructures and membranes as thin as 27 µm. Different porogen concentrations were tested, yielding constructs with increasing porosity and oxygen permeability surpassing PDMS, without compromising printing resolution. Additionally, the P-PEGDA showed up to a 77-fold increase in cell coverage compared to nonporous materials due to its porosity. This formulation holds great potential for organ-on-a-chip applications, offering a promising alternative to PDMS. If you're interested in learning more, check out the full publication here: https://lnkd.in/eNiQyfAC A big congratulations to co-authors, Molly Shen, Houda Shafique, Felix Lussier, and heartfelt thanks to David Juncker for his invaluable guidance. Juncker Lab #microfluidics #3D_printing #biomaterials #Organ-on-a-chip

We sent our trusted agent Hugues Martin all the way to Melbourne, Australia for the 2024 International Society for Extracellular Vesicles conference! Congratulations Hugues for winning the poster prize!!! 🥂 #ISEV2024

One mesmerizing video, two stories: 1. A microfluidic timer to remind you that TODAY is the deadline to submit a an abstract to microTAS 2024 that will be in Montreal this fall: https://lnkd.in/dfDF3tWW 2. An ELISA Chip and assay made by low cost, high resolution LCD 3D printing. Our work opens the door for anyone with ~$300 to manufacture high performance, walk-away lab-on-a-chips for assays and other applications. Our manuscript in Lab-on-a-chip has now been assigned an issue and page number: https://lnkd.in/e5wTR_V7 Video credit: Houda Shafique

On Friday, we wrapped up the third and final day of our Hands-On Workshop! The teams impressed us with their creative solutions to this year's design challenge on creating a multi-OoC for drug discovery in the context of Alzheimer's disease, and we all had the pleasure to listen to keynote speaker Prof. Roger Kamm give an excellent talk on his lab's work on vascularized microphysiological system models. Congratulations to this year's design challenge winners 👏 🏆 and to all our wonderful participants. Shout-out to Asiga for their support and presence during the social event, and a big shout-out to our CEO (Chief Executive Organizer) Houda Shafique and to everyone who helped make this event great!

Day 2 of our workshop saw additional hands-on sessions in the lab, CAD, FLUI'DEVICE & 3D-printing, and creativity blossomed as the teams worked on the challenge to come up with their own design ideas for a multi-OoC device for drug discovery in the context of Alzheimer's disease!

Day 1 of our workshop is under wraps! Lectures on microfluidics by Prof. Thomas Gervais, 3D-printing for micro-scale applications by Prof. Houman Savoji and organ-on-a-chip devices by Dr. Andreas Wallucks were followed by hands-on sessions in the lab, CAD & FLUI'DEVICE demos, as well as a live 3D-printing demo!

3D Printing embedded microchannels is arguably the hardest challenge for 3D printing because channels easily get clogged with uncured and then cured resin. LCD 3D printers are now cheaper than a cell phone, ranging from between $150 to $600 or so, have pixels as small as 18 μm, and as many as 56 million pixels, but despite their advantageous specifications, they were not useful for printing embedded microfluidic channels because ink would be photocross-linked prematurely during the print But now they are: The video shows a microCT cross-section of an embedded, functional microvalve with a 20-μm-thin membrane made with an LCD 3D printer. How did we do it? Find out by reading our latest manuscript entitled Low-Cost High Resolution LCD 3D printing (and mass production) for Microfluidics and Organ-on-a-Chip Devices now published in Lab-on-a-chip (Royal Society of Chemistry). In short, we introduce a new ink (or resin) called PLInk for printing embedded microchannels with diameters almost as small as a human hair using low cost LCD 3D printers with 405 nm UV light. We characterizes PLInk, and articulate design criteria for formulating inks. We then used PLInk to print (i) a microfluidic mixer, (ii) an embedded valve, (iii) a capillaric circuit serving as an ELISA Chip and used for a walk-away, high sensitivity, low CV immunoassay of Interferon-gamma, and (iv) an organ-on-a-chip device for culturing spheroids and blood vessels; the last example is also used to illustrate the potential for mass production as 3420 chips were printed in a single run. In summary, with $150 , access to the internet, and a suitable ink, anyone could now print, share (via respositories such as Printables or Thingiverse), and even mass-produce, 3D printed microfluidic chips and organ-on-a-chip devices. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helped, including first author Houda Shafique and co-authors Vahid KaramZadeh, Ph.D., Geunyong Kim, Molly Shen, Yonatan Morocz, Ahmad Sohrabi-Kashani, PhD

Don’t miss the keynote lecture by Prof. Roger Kamm from Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of our 14th Annual Hands-On Workshop in 3D Printing and Microfluidics! Join us for his talk titled “VASCULARIZED MICROPHYSIOLOGICAL SYSTEM MODELS FOR TRANSPORT ACROSS THE BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER AND IN SUBCUTANEOUS TISSUE”. The talk will be open to ALL and refreshments will be provided. 📅 May 3, 2024 from 3:30-4:30 PM 📍 Leacock room 219, McGill University 🔗 More information: https://lnkd.in/d2ksz4JD McGill University McGill School of Biomedical Sciences