3-D Microfluidic Chip Integrating Concentration Gradient Design and Perfusion System for Embryo Coculture with Stromal Cells

• Main Authors: Chang, Pei-Yu, 張佩喻
• Other Authors: Liu, Chien-Hsien
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16299132670093371596

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 動力機械工程學系 === 101 === People living in the 21st century need to catch up the rapid change pace of global technology and often ignore the soothing of their own soul and the quality of life. The effects coming from either physical disease or psychologically invisible pressure might result in indirect influence to the next generation of new life. In order to solve the infertility symptoms, the treatment of reproductive medical technology has always been a subject to one of the concerned topics. The reproductive medicine IVF is now ready to nurture the embryo in vitro and be implanted in the mother to have test-tube baby. In fact, not only the fees are expensive for the treatment but also the probability of success is only about 36.5%. In recent years, with the development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) the technology allows to co-culture the stromal cells and the embryos on microfluidic chips. The use of dynamic continuous fluid instead of blood vessels could mimic the function of giving fresh nutrients to establish a bionic uterine environment platform. Even though there are still some differences on the actual situation of uterus and platform, it could provide a biomimicking platform to facilitate the development of embryos which are cultured with stromal cells. This study was to design a platform simulating the human uterus. By MEMS technology, the gradient generator was designed and implemented with passive micromixers to produce six different medium concentrations on chip in this study. The porous PDMS membrane with 17μm holes between top and bottom channel was utilized to build a diffusion system to mimic vascular. The goal of this research is to use the 3-D microfluidic chip with the function of gradient and diffusion system to co-culture the embryos and stromal cells. This study is to mimic the actual situation of human uterus to improve the quality of embryo splitting to increase the successful rate of pregnancy.