Microtechnologies for Stem Cells Event

- Time:
- 14:30 - 15:30
- Date:
- 19 July 2011
- Venue:
- Building 85, Room 2207
Event details
Microtechnologies enable organization and manipulation of cells and their microenvironment at the biologically relevant scales and therefore provide new ways of probing cell phenotypes with cellular resolution. Embryonic stem cells are unique in their potential to self-renew or to differentiate into any cell type of the adult body and thus hold great promise for both basic and applied science.
In this talk, Dr Blagovic will first discuss how microtechnologies and flow properties at the microscale can be used to manipulate stem cell diffusible microenvironment, which plays an important role in embryonic stem cell pluripotency and differentiation. More specifically, a valved microfluidic perfusion platform was developed that leverages the interplay between diffusion, convection and reaction at the microscale to alter and study autocrine signaling in mouse embryonic stem cells neuronal differentiation. The second part of the talk will focus on developing technologies that enable easy and straightforward comparisons/translations of macro assays performed in standard culture settings to micro assays performed in microfluidic devices. For this, a simple technique for integrating multifunctional micropatterned polystyrene surfaces was developed, that mimic standard tissue culture polystyrene plastic with complex microfluidic devices.
Biography:
Katarina Blagovic received her Dipl.-Ing. degree from the University of Zagreb, Croatia in 2001 and her PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland in 2006, both in Electrical Engineering. She joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. Her current research interests include developing and applying micro-technologies to study stem cell biology. She is a recipient of the 2006 Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship for Prospective Researchers. In 2008 she received the ISSCR Annual Meeting Junior Investigator Poster Award.