P-254

A scalable microfluidic device for the mass production of microencapsulated islets

S. Tendulkar¹, S.-H. Mirmalek-Sani², C. Childers², R. Pareta², E. Opara², M. Ramasubramanian^3
1 North Carolina State University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA; ² Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University Health Sciences , Wake Forest, NC, USA; ³ National Science Foundation, Division of Graduate Education-IGERT, Arlington, VA 22102, USA

Objective: The objective of this research is to design a scalable microfluidic device for the mass production of microencapsulated islets for transplantation; demonstrate its feasibility; and study its functionality.

Methods: A three dimensional microfluidic device consisting of eight outlets with one polymer inlet and one air inlet to the device was designed and fabricated directly using stereolithography rapid prototyping technique. The device is shown in Figure 1. Islets dispersed in alginate are pumped into the fluid inlet and the microfluidic device distributes the flow equally to all the eight channels bydesign. The air plenum distributes compressed air uniformly through the eight concurrent outlets. Thus with one fluid pump and air source the device produceseight microencapsulations simultaneously and the device is scalable.

Results: With the 8-channel microfluidic device, we have microencapsulated isolated rat and human islets that have been shown to be viable using histologic and functional tests. A photograph of microencapsulated islets is shown in Figure 2.

Conclusions: The device is capable of producing 8-channels of steady stream of monodisperse microencapsulations of a range of diameters depending on the design and process parameters. Further scale up of the device can reduce the time to encapsulate~1 million microencapsulated islets required for human transplantation requiredby two orders of magnitude thus improving the viability of encapsulated isletsand the outcome of their transplantation.

Figure 1. 3-D, 8-Channel microfluidic encapsulator showing flow paths of alginate and air.

Figure 2.Microenapsulated Islets Low magnification optical image, diameter 600 µm

P-254

A scalable microfluidic device for the mass production of microencapsulated islets

S. Tendulkar¹, S.-H. Mirmalek-Sani², C. Childers², R. Pareta², E. Opara², M. Ramasubramanian^3
1 North Carolina State University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA; ² Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University Health Sciences , Wake Forest, NC, USA; ³ National Science Foundation, Division of Graduate Education-IGERT, Arlington, VA 22102, USA

Objective: The objective of this research is to design a scalable microfluidic device for the mass production of microencapsulated islets for transplantation; demonstrate its feasibility; and study its functionality.

Methods: A three dimensional microfluidic device consisting of eight outlets with one polymer inlet and one air inlet to the device was designed and fabricated directly using stereolithography rapid prototyping technique. The device is shown in Figure 1. Islets dispersed in alginate are pumped into the fluid inlet and the microfluidic device distributes the flow equally to all the eight channels bydesign. The air plenum distributes compressed air uniformly through the eight concurrent outlets. Thus with one fluid pump and air source the device produceseight microencapsulations simultaneously and the device is scalable.

Results: With the 8-channel microfluidic device, we have microencapsulated isolated rat and human islets that have been shown to be viable using histologic and functional tests. A photograph of microencapsulated islets is shown in Figure 2.

Conclusions: The device is capable of producing 8-channels of steady stream of monodisperse microencapsulations of a range of diameters depending on the design and process parameters. Further scale up of the device can reduce the time to encapsulate~1 million microencapsulated islets required for human transplantation requiredby two orders of magnitude thus improving the viability of encapsulated isletsand the outcome of their transplantation.

Figure 1. 3-D, 8-Channel microfluidic encapsulator showing flow paths of alginate and air.

Figure 2.Microenapsulated Islets Low magnification optical image, diameter 600 µm