A Platform for Intracellular Substance Delivery
B: K562 cell to which fluorescent substance is delivered
A Korea University research team led by biomedical engineering professor Chung Aram has developed a microfluidic chip for immunocyte or stem cell gene editing and manipulation.
A primary cell such as stem cells and immunocytes has a limited lifespan and defies artificial gene manipulation unlike a cell line. However, primary cell gene editing is essential for cell therapy development and, as such, techniques for effective transformation have been required. Especially, gene editing techniques related to cancer immunotherapy have been in high demand.
The intracellular substance delivery platform developed by the team delivers various gene manipulators simply with intra-microfluidic channel fluid flow and without using electricity or virus unlike existing techniques. In addition, the platform is highly efficient and versatile for every substance size and every cell type.
The team succeeded in obtaining transformation yields higher than those of electroporation and polymer carrier-based techniques with regard to human umbilical cord-derived, fat-derived and rat bone marrow-derived stem cells. Specifically, more than one million cells can be transformed per minute and practical contribution is anticipated in the field of cell therapy research.
In addition, with the team’s technique, nanoparticles with a diameter of 300 nm can be delivered into cytoplasms, and thus contribution is anticipated regarding various types of nanoparticle-based cellular engineering research as well. Details of the research are available in ACS Nano (IF:14.5).