About
In this project we apply our microfluidic tools to shed new light on cells in 3D culture. Indeed, it is often stated that 3D cell culture better recapitulate the cells’ native micro-environment and thus their behavior in vivo. However most studies on spheroids and organoids suffer from the difficulty of manipulating these fragile objects.
Our work on 3D cell culture in microfluidic droplets [1] allows us to obtain high-throughput single-cell data that preserve spatial and temporal information about each cell. Contrary to most work in this area, we take a data-driven approach that relies on very fine control of each spheroid and the ability to interrogate the cells within the spheroid with high spatial and temporal resolution. In this way we are able to learn much more detailed information about how the structure of the 3D culture affects the function of the cells within it.
We are currently applying these tools to address several questions, such as mapping and understanding the spatial structure within organoids, or developing hgihly relevant models for cancer immuno-therapy.