Microvalves chatting at sunset



Reflected light creates a prism that shines through a microfluidic chip that would otherwise be transparent. When at work, the chip rests over a live cell culture and pipes proteins or drugs onto them through the round openings, which are about one-tenth of a millimetre wide. The squares around the apertures control the flow.



(Image: Chris Sip and Albert Folch/University of Washington)

The day that Mondrian visited the lab



Chris Sip and Albert Folch's chip has an air of the painter Piet Mondrian, whose approach to his art has often been compared to science. The liquid-filled tubes echo the vertical and horizontal grid lines of his paintings.



In this image, channels on different planes of a chip are filled with differing concentrations of a blue dye. In practice, the channels deliver chemicals to neurons, and were created to mimic the way neurons set up connections in a developing nervous system.



(Image: Chris Sip and Albert Folch/University of Washington)

Chromatic mixer



Moving liquids, even in tiny amounts, can disturb growing cells. This chip gets around the problem by piping a solution beneath cells that grow on a porous membrane, which is the square structure in this montage of a single chip and three digitally manipulated copies; the lower right panel is the original. Two solutions, in yellow and blue, flow from the lower chamber into the membrane, where they make a chemical gradient that diffuses to the cells.



(Image: David Cate and Albert Folch/University of Washington) Advertisement

Neurons looking at you



In miniature cell-culture devices such as this one, the growth of neurons – in fluorescent green – can be controlled by coating the device with adhesion proteins – in red – that latch onto cells. This set-up allows researchers to determine how drugs or other treatments affect the cells.



Journal reference: Langmuir, vol 19, p 4754



(Image: Xavier Figueroa and Albert Folch/University of Washington)