In vivo, tissue is highly vascularized to provide nutrients and oxygen necessary for cell survival. Furthermore, complex tissues, such as the liver, contain multiple fluidic systems (cardiovascular, biliary, and lymphatic) that do not directly connect yet interact via biomolecular mass transport. The ability to recapitulate complex in vivo fluidic architecture in synthetic constructs could open new avenues for the implementation of biomimetic microtissues for many in vitro
applications including disease modeling, organ-on-a-chip and human-on-a-chip devices, and high-throughput or patient-specific drug screening models. Toward this goal, we are developing a laser-induced, photocavitation-mediated hydrogel erosion technique to locally degrade synthetic and natural hydrogels in desired 3D configurations for the fabrication of complex 3D microfluidic systems derived from native tissue lymphatic and cardiovascular systems.
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