Polymer-based microfluidic platforms for the study of neuroregeneration and neuroanalytical chemistry

Abstract

In this presentation I will be discussing two sub-topics in the field of neuroscience, regeneration of neurons and chemical signaling between neurons, with special focus on polymers used in the study. 1. PDMS microfluidic devices: Laminar flow can be used to transect a selected sub-cellular domain of a primary neuron cultured in a PDMS microfluidic channel. This platform is useful for the study of neurotrophic factors and tension involved during the regeneration process. 2. Polyimide capillaries: I will first show that polyimides can be used for culturing primary neurons of sea slugs. Since several analytical techniques such as gas/liquid chromatography use a polyimide-coated capillary for separation and delivery of analytes, the platform can be easily interfaced with those techniques and used for analyzing, for example, cell-to-cell signaling molecules within nervous systems.