Last Friday afternoon (11/18), the team met up to test a 300 um-diameter needle coated in BSA for channel formation. We first made up 0.5% agarose and loaded it into the chamber with the needle inside. After the gel solidified, the needle was removed carefully using tweezers. We first tried pushing fluid through with a 20 uL pipette. The fluid chose to pass through the space where the gel met the chamber wall instead of through the channel itself. This led us to believe that 300 um may be too small and confer too much resistance to allow fluid to pass. In addition, we were not able to see if the needle removal left a channel that was able to support itself due to the very small diameter. In future experiments, we will test larger diameter needles and use a dye to track fluid flow through the channel.
On 11/22, I met with Nick Thompson to discuss modifications to the chamber design. We discussed printing a channel out of PLGA or PCL to solve the channel instability issue. However, there were significant limitations with the low permeability and cost of such a channel. We also discussed the possibility of a needle with small enough perforations to inhibit the PEG to flow into the chamber. Pictures and video from our 11/18 experiment are uploaded to the following folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bz1SvoM7LVxSQ09FNlBrLWZVcDQ?usp=sharing
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April 2017
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