Laboratory miniaturization: Reconfigurable cell adhesion substrates

A team led by Shuichi Takayama, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has replicated the nano-scale features and stickiness of cell-adhesion molecules in a laboratory device. Studying how the surface of a cell interacts with adhesion proteins is key to understanding signal transduction, growth, differentiation, motility and cell death. But in vitro models are hard to come by.

Takayama's team has developed a substrate that can be split into parallel cracks and then lined with cell adhesion proteins to study cellular responses. The cracks may be tailored from 120 to 3200 nanometers, making them similar in size to the adhesion surfaces found in nature. The cracks may also be adjusted in situ to study changes in cell behavior.

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