Figure 7.

3D photopatterning of support pillars and encapsulation of cells. (Left: Side view of full device; right: top view of central chamber) (A and B) To create support pillars, the bonded microfluidic chip was infused with acrylamide (Am) solution containing photoinitiator and was photopolymerized using a collimated UV light and a transparency photomask containing 100 μm diameter circle patterns. (C and D) After washing with PBS, a precursor solution composed of cells, GelMA, and photoinitiator was polymerized around the pillars using the same method as before, except with a capsule-shaped pattern. (E) PBS solution was used to wash the samples, and the device was perfused with maintenance media by using a syringe pump. (Reproduced with permission from Agrawal et al., 2017⁵⁷).