Interfacial Physics, Healthcare and Medicine: Microfluidics and Nanofluidics

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "B:Biology and Biomedicine".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 5200

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Nanoscience Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
2. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Interests: nano therapeutics; bio prosthetic heart valve; microfluidics; heart valve disease; molecular self-assembly
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Interfacial physics refers to the study of the physical events that occur at the interface of a solid and two immiscible fluids (i.e., liquid–air); it therefore deals with complex flow physics at the macroscopic, microscopic and nanoscale level. Microfluidics and nanofluidics intersect with interfacial physics via the governing of flow physics at the micro-scale and nano-scale interfaces. Interfacial physics signficantly impacts a wide range of scientific fields and technologies in healthcare and medicine. In this Special Issue, we aim to explore advances in the area of interfacial physics and its relationship with microfluidics and nanofluidics, as well as its application in various biotechnology, such as advanced biosensors, 3D bio-printing, nano-medicine, personalized medicine, advanced functional biomaterials, drug delivery systems, drug discovery, and diagnostics technology.

Potential topics for submission in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • advancements in the physics of interfacial science at the micro-scale and nano-scale;
  • microfluidic devices in healthcare and medicine;
  • nanofluidic devices in healthcare and medicine;
  • drug delivery systems;
  • nano-medicine;
  • interfacial physics over bio-inspired hydrophobic and bio-inspired superhydrophobic surfaces;
  • interfacial physics of moving biological droplets on flexible materials;
  • printed bioelectronics; 
  • biomaterials;
  • advanced biosensors;
  • micro/nano bio-printing;
  • advancements in interfacial physics by state-of-the-art machine learning and artificial intelligence

Dr. Alireza Mohammad Karim
Dr. Mohsen Akbari
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • interfacial physics
  • fluid dynamics
  • biosensors
  • bio-printing
  • medicine
  • healthcare

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 7907 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Targeted Therapies on Red Blood Cell Aggregation in Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Evaluated Using Software Image Flow Analysis
by Anika Alexandrova-Watanabe, Emilia Abadjieva, Lidia Gartcheva, Ariana Langari, Miroslava Ivanova, Margarita Guenova, Tihomir Tiankov, Velichka Strijkova, Sashka Krumova and Svetla Todinova
Micromachines 2025, 16(1), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi16010095 - 15 Jan 2025
Viewed by 901
Abstract
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common type of leukemia, remains incurable with conventional therapy. Despite advances in therapies targeting Bruton’s tyrosine kinase and anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2, little is known about their effect on red blood cell (RBC) aggregation in blood flow. In [...] Read more.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common type of leukemia, remains incurable with conventional therapy. Despite advances in therapies targeting Bruton’s tyrosine kinase and anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2, little is known about their effect on red blood cell (RBC) aggregation in blood flow. In this study, we applied a microfluidic device and a newly developed Software Image Flow Analysis to assess the extent of RBC aggregation in CLL patients and to elucidate the hemorheological effects of the commonly applied therapeutics Obinutuzumab/Venetoclax and Ibrutinib. The results revealed that, in RBC samples from untreated CLL patients, complex 3D clusters of large RBC aggregates are formed, and their number is significantly increased compared to healthy control samples. The application of the Obinutuzumab/Venetoclax combination did not affect this aspect of RBCs’ rheological behavior. In contrast, targeted therapy with Ibrutinib preserves the aggregation state of CLL RBCs to levels seen in healthy controls, demonstrating that Ibrutinib mitigates the alterations in the rheological properties of RBCs associated with CLL. Our findings highlight the alterations in RBC aggregation in CLL and the impact of different targeted therapies on RBCs’ rheological properties, which is critical for predicting the potential complications and side effects of CLL treatments, particularly concerning blood flow dynamics. Full article
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14 pages, 5594 KiB  
Article
A Novel Device for Micro-Droplets Generation Based on the Stepwise Membrane Emulsification Principle
by Lei Lei, Sven Achenbach, Garth Wells, Hongbo Zhang and Wenjun Zhang
Micromachines 2024, 15(9), 1118; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15091118 - 31 Aug 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2207
Abstract
This paper presents a novel design of the device to generate microspheres or micro-droplets based on the membrane emulsification principle. Specifically, the novelty of the device lies in a proposed two-layer or stepwise (by generalization) membrane structure. An important benefit of the stepwise [...] Read more.
This paper presents a novel design of the device to generate microspheres or micro-droplets based on the membrane emulsification principle. Specifically, the novelty of the device lies in a proposed two-layer or stepwise (by generalization) membrane structure. An important benefit of the stepwise membrane is that it can be fabricated with the low-cost material (SU-8) and using the conventional lithography technology along with a conventional image-based alignment technique. The experiment to examine the effectiveness of the proposed membrane was conducted, and the result shows that microspheres with the size of 2.3 μm and with the size uniformity of 0.8 μm can be achieved, which meets the requirements for most applications in industries. It is noted that the traditional membrane emulsification method can only produce microspheres of around 20 μm. The main contribution of this paper is thus the new design principle of membranes (i.e., stepwise structure), which can be made by the cost-effective fabrication technique, for high performance of droplets production. Full article
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16 pages, 4845 KiB  
Article
Fabrication of Porous Collagen Scaffolds Containing Embedded Channels with Collagen Membrane Linings
by Neda Fakhri, Arezoo Khalili, Terry Sachlos and Pouya Rezai
Micromachines 2024, 15(8), 1031; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15081031 - 14 Aug 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1323
Abstract
Tissues and organs contain an extracellular matrix (ECM). In the case of blood vessels, endothelium cells are anchored to a specialized basement membrane (BM) embedded inside the interstitial matrix (IM). We introduce a multi-structural collagen-based scaffold with embedded microchannels that mimics in vivo [...] Read more.
Tissues and organs contain an extracellular matrix (ECM). In the case of blood vessels, endothelium cells are anchored to a specialized basement membrane (BM) embedded inside the interstitial matrix (IM). We introduce a multi-structural collagen-based scaffold with embedded microchannels that mimics in vivo structures within vessels. Our scaffold consists of two parts, each containing two collagen layers, i.e., a 3D porous collagen layer analogous to IM lined with a thin 2D collagen film resembling the BM. Enclosed microchannels were fabricated using contact microprinting. Microchannel test structures with different sizes ranging from 300 to 800 µm were examined for their fabrication reproducibility. The heights and perimeters of the fabricated microchannels were ~20% less than their corresponding values in the replication PDMS mold; however, microchannel widths were significantly closer to their replica dimensions. The stiffness, permeability, and pore size properties of the 2D and 3D collagen layers were measured. The permeability of the 2D collagen film was negligible, making it suitable for mimicking the BM of large blood vessels. A leakage test at various volumetric flow rates applied to the microchannels showed no discharge, thereby verifying the reliability of the proposed integrated 2D/3D collagen parts and the contact printing method used for bonding them in the scaffold. In the future, multi-cell culturing will be performed within the 3D porous collagen and against the 2D membrane inside the microchannel, hence preparing this scaffold for studying a variety of blood vessel–tissue interfaces. Also, thicker collagen scaffold tissues will be fabricated by stacking several layers of the proposed scaffold. Full article
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