Itziar Gonzalez

Title : Tumor cell microspheroids induced by non-contact mechanical forces

Abstract:

We present a novel device actuated by ultrasound to induce rapid formation of cellular spheroids in very short times of less than 5 minutes, an order of magnitude less than those of conventional systems, which usually require more than 24h. It consists of a 2D polymeric array with 3x3 wells of square geometry and is driven by an ultrasonic transducer attached. The wells have a rectangular geometry with parallel sidewalls, necessary for the establishment of half-wave standing waves inside with highly reflectant sidewalls. The cells contained in the liquid suspension are exposed to a radiation force arising from pressure gradients. This hydrodynamic force drives the particles toward positions of acoustic equilibrium established inside the wells, where collect and aggregate forming spheroids after few minutes. The spherical shape acquired by these cell aggregates arises in the resulting 3D radiation force vectors generated by the relationship between the geometrical dimensions and acoustic wavelength of the incident wave. These aggregates show a stable behaviour over time during at least 48h after the acoustic actuation in the wells. The experiments were made on tumour cell samples immersed in in liquid suspension of their culture medium. In particular, PANC-1 cell lines were used, providing highly efficient results of cell aggregation in approximately 2 minutes of ultrasound irradiation. The devices described represent a technological advance in terms of the actuation required times, their low manufacturing cost and simple design. In addition, they present other added advantages such as their low manufacturing cost, simple design and easy handling in the laboratory

Audience Take Away Notes

• This technological approach is protected in a patent licence process. Therefore, this presentation may be of interest to audiences from different disciplines who want to obtain aggregates of cells, bacteria or microelements in general from liquid suspensions.
• In particular, groups related to tissue regeneration laboratories may be stakeholders in the technological development presented in this work as it presents time-advances in the performance of cell spheroids for tissue regeneration o tumor microenvironment models.

Biography:

Dr. Itziar Gonzalez studied Physics and developed her Doctoral Thesis at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain and received her PhD degree in 1998. She then joined the research group of High Power Ultrasounds at the Institute of Acoustics of the National Research Council of Spain CSIC. Since then, she has open new research transdisciplinar lines, leading different bio and technological disciplines. She has coordinated more than 6 national and international research projects published more than 30 papers and currently she is Deputy Director of the Institute of Prof. James at the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IGIC-BAS). She received her PhD degree in 2004 at the same institution. After one year postdoctoral fellowship supervised by Dr Williams at the Catalysis and Spectrochemistry Laboratory, France she obtained the position of an Associate Professor at the IGIC. She has published more than 70 research articles in SCI (E) journals.