Completed notes of the course Part 3

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LEZIONE 22-05-19 MICRO-NANO DEVICES FOR NANOMEDICINE NANOTECHNOLOGY AND MICRODEVICES The use of these devices is trendy. There are different technologies to fabricate microdevices: microfluidic is only one of the approaches. We could pattern surfaces to let cells grow and proliferate. Both type of devices can be integrated, using microfluidics and micropatterning. One of the pros is that you can screen, you can make a variety of different experiments. For example, you could screen the cytotoxicity, which could differ for the tiny modification of the chemical structure or the pattern of cell deposited on a certain layer. There is also the possibility of using complex structure for tissue engineering, for triggering the morphogenesis of micro-organs, complex tissues made of composition of different cell types in order to mimic the complexity of the full organ. Microfluidics may help a lot in controlling the synthesis of these nanomaterials, in order to achieve particles of different size and shape and different properties therefore. One famous approach is micro-contact printing. You have a mould where you can deposit or even polymerise particles. Then you could detach the polymer maintaining the shape of the mould. You can add an ink at the surface of the pattern and then you can stamp the pattern. In a pattern you could culture certain cell type or using this pattern for sensoring, attaching antibodies at the chemical ink. Your analyte could adhere at the antibody only where the pattern is located. We could make also microchannels rather than a pattern. When you detach the polymer layer there are holes, like microchannels, and by doing so you could use as microdevices where you have some liquid flowing inside. Another approach is the inkjet printing: you have a nozzle,…