Manufacture custom microenvironments in vitro, with micrometric control of their topography, rigidity and chemistry

 Micropatterning, hydrogel polymerization and microfabrication

 Create in vitro cellular microenvironments

 Functionalize and / or structure substrates

 Alvéole develops innovative tools improving the quality of the cell sample preparation for cell biology and microscopy.

 Through the fine-tuning of cell microenvironment in vitro, this bioengineering platform provides biologists the control over the development and proliferation of living cells in culture.

  Functionalize and/or structure your substrates and generate better in vitro cell models for:

enhancing the physiological relevance of your cell biology experiments,

screening different conditions, facilitating whole-cell cryo-ET imaging.

  Micropatterning, hydrogel polymerization and microfabrication, all in a single device. Create bespoke in vitro cellular microenvironments and get better cell models for your cell biology experiments or cryo-ET studies.

 Studying the influence of the microenvironment on intracellular and intercellular mechanisms has been essential for research in cell biology, for many years now. But in this quest, in vitro cell experiments confront researchers with many challenges, such as:

-the recurring reproducibility issues,

-reliability in term of physiological relevance,

-but also ease of use,

-and efficiency

Developed by Alvéole scientists after the LIMAP* technology (Strale P.O. et al, Adv Mater. 2016), the PRIMO maskless photopatterning system (DMD based) can engineer custom in vitro cell microenvironments through three techniques: micropatterning, hydrogel structuration and microfabrication.

PRIMO workflow for better in vitro cell models:

1-SUBSTRATE selection and preparation

2-PATTERN DESIGN and upload in Leonardo software

3-UV PROJECTION BY PRIMO for micropatterning, microfabrication, hydrogel polymerization

4-USING CUSTOM in vitro CONDITIONS for better cell experiments

Micropatterning

allows to precisely control cell adhesion to mimic in vivo phenotypes, isolate them or place them in reproducible conditions for standardized assays.

Microfabrication

PRIMO maskless DMD-based photopatterning system can perform greyscale photolithography on greyscale resists to create complex 3D molds such as ramps, curving wells or microfluidic chips for organ-on-a-chip applications.

Hydrogels

As a photopatterning system, PRIMO can also polymerize and photo-scission most commonly used hydrogels for applications such as 3D cell culture or permeable hydrogel membranes polymerization within microfluidic chips.

Fields of application

Adjust the biochemical and mechanical cues of the cell microenvironment in vitro with PRIMO and generate more physiologically-relevant cell models.

The system allows you to better study the behavior and development of living cells in a broad range of applications, such as: cytoskeleton dynamics, cell adhesion force measurement, cell confinement, cell migration, tissue engineering, spheroids.

-Substrate structuration: microfabrication, hydrogel structuration

-Micropatterning, Surface functionalization: biomolecule micropatterning

-Substrate structuration and Functionalization: complex cell microenvironments