Microfluidic Topography Biases Neural Organoid Morphogenesis
Published in 2025 47th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2025
Authors: John Minnick, Drew Ehrlich, Maryam Moarefian, Jess Sevetson, Jinghui Geng, Kateryna Voitiuk, Yohei Rosen, Sofie R Salama, David Haussler, Mircea Teodorescu
This study highlights how inherent micro-scale surface topographies can occur in microfluidic chips based on their fabrication modalities and how these surface topographies can bias organoid morphogenesis. Human cortical organoids were cultured and seeded into micro-wells with varying surface topographies for 21 days and were continuously recorded with the use of an in-incubator microscope. Afterwards, organoid morphology was tracked using computer vision and analyzed with a morphological data processing pipeline. Scanning electron microscopy and optical profilometry were used to analyze the topography of the micro-wells. A link between microfluidic surface topography and organoid morphogenesis was demonstrated.
Paper Link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11254219