Electrophysiology chip on a microfluidic platform

心脏的活动可以简化为一组巨大的肌肉，它们的同步收缩在腔内吸血，并迫使血液再次排出。肌肉收缩的时机对它的正常运作至关重要。一种测试心脏活动的方法被称为膜片钳，在这种方法中可以测量细胞的电活动。这是一项技术困难、耗时的技术，通常需要有经验的科学家来完成，我们相信我们可以通过制造新的仪器来解决这一问题。该项目旨在创建一个Lab-on-a-Chip，其中将在这样的芯片上实施高功能测量，收集关于单个电池的机械收缩和电活动的信息。这些芯片将对电池收缩的程度进行一般测量，或对电池收缩时的电压和电流流量进行更具体的测量，或者同时进行这两种测量。该项目将使科学界受益，因为它提供了一种简单易用的仪器，可以快速、低成本地测量心脏或肌肉细胞的机械和电活动。该平台的性质是，我们不仅可以使用芯片来检查细胞内信号，还可以检查细胞之间的细胞间信号。为了证明该芯片与其他类型的电活性细胞一起使用的更通用的特性，我们还将研究在我们的芯片系统中使用原代平滑肌以及人类胚胎干细胞(HESC)来源的心肌细胞和平滑肌。

The action of the heart can be simplified by considering it as a set of large muscles, whose synchronised contractions draws blood in the chambers and forces it out again. This timing of the muscle's contractions are crucial to its correct functioning. One method for testing the activity of the heart is known as 'patch clamping', in which it is possible to measure the electrical activity of the cell. This is a technically difficult, time consuming technique which often needs to be performed by skilled scientists, and which we believe we can address by making new instruments. The project aims to create a Lab-on-a-Chip, where highly functional measurements, which collect information on both the mechanical contraction and the electrical activity of the single cell, will be implemented on such chips. These chips will either make general measurements of how well the cell contractsor more specific measurements on the flow of voltages and currents as the cell contracts, or both, at the same time. The project will benefit the scientific community by providing an easy to use instrument, that can quickly, and at low cost, measure both the mechanical and the electrical activity of the heart or muscle cell. The nature of the platform will be such that we can not only use the chip to examine intracellular signalling, but also inter-cellular signalling, between cells. In order to demonstrate the more generic nature of the chip for use with other electrically active cell types, we will also investigate the use of primary smooth muscle as well as human embryonic stem cells (hESC) derived cardiomyocytes and smooth muscle in our chip systems.