Development of microfluidics for multi-organs devices

An organ-on-a-chip is a microfluidic cell culture typically made of continuously perfused chambers inhabited by living cells arranged to simulate tissue- and organ-level physiology. Conventional 2D or 3D culture systems do not allow to reach the levels of tissue and organ funtionality that these devices are capable to through the recapitulation of multicellular architectures, tissue-tissue interfaces, physicochemical micro-environments and vascular perfusion of the body. The development of the microfluidic devices described in this thesis is mainly concerns about organotypic cultures of spheroids made by primary humanhepatocyte PHH, and their interaction with other cell cultures as gut, pancreas, fat and muscles. This thesis is divided into two major parts. The first part is focused on physic microfluidic problems in which this project is involved, from the use of the syringe pump to the device structure. All the issues and their subsequent resolution are described, then, results are further discussed. The second part in mainly concerned about cell culture experiment and viability assays. Similarities and differences between many conditions have been analyzed and a future work prospective is shown.