Making Structures for Cell Engineering

Wilkinson, C. (2004) Making Structures for Cell Engineering. European Cells and Materials, 8, pp. 21-26.

Abstract

This is a mainly historical account of the events, methods and artifacts arising from my collaboration with Adam Curtis over the past twenty years to make exercise grounds for biological cells. Initially the structures were made in fused silica by photo-lithography and dry etching. The need to make micron-sized features in biodegradable polymers, led to the development of embossing techniques. Some cells response to grooves only a few tens of nanometers deep--this led to a desire to find the response of cells to features of nanometric size overall. Regular arrays of such features were made using electron beam lithography for definition of the pattern. Improvements were made in the lithographic techniques to allow arrays to be defined over areas bigger than 1 cm2. Structures with microelectrodes arranged inside guiding grooves to allow the formation of sparse predetermined networks of neurons were made. It is concluded that the creation of pattern, as in vivo, in assemblies of regrown cells in scaffolds may well be necessary in advanced cell engineering applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wilkinson, Professor Christopher
• Authors: Wilkinson, C.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: European Cells and Materials