Congratulations to Sophie Cook and co-author Hannah Musgrove for their paper now available online before print in Lab on a Chip! Sophie invented a creative impeller pump design for in-line recirculaton of media through on-chip cultures and organs-on-chip. The pump does not require any tubing or external pumps, just a magnetic stirring platform that easily fits in the incubator without heating it up. This was an exciting collaboration with Prof. Amy Throckmorton of Drexel University, who conducted advanced fluid dynamic simulations to better understand and predict the fluid flow around the pump and how it controlled flow through the channels.
This pump lays the groundwork for recirculating flow control in long-term cultures and multi-tissue cultures. Sophie and Hannah showed that it was mechanically compatible with recirculating of lymphocytes, and when 3D printed in the right resin, could be used to circulate model lymphocytes overnight.
