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Digitally tunable physicochemical coding of material composition and topography in continuous microfibres

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 877–883 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Heterotypic functional materials with compositional and topographical properties that vary spatiotemporally on the micro- or nanoscale are common in nature. However, fabricating such complex materials in the laboratory remains challenging. Here we describe a method to continuously create microfibres with tunable morphological, structural and chemical features using a microfluidic system consisting of a digital, programmable flow control that mimics the silk-spinning process of spiders. With this method we fabricated hydrogel microfibres coded with varying chemical composition and topography along the fibre, including gas micro-bubbles as well as nanoporous spindle-knots and joints that enabled directional water collection. We also explored the potential use of the coded microfibres for tissue engineering applications by creating multifunctional microfibres with a spatially controlled co-culture of encapsulated cells.

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Figure 1: Concept of coded microfibre production.
Figure 2: Fabrication of spatially controlled microfibres with diverse chemical compositions.
Figure 3: Structural coding of fibres.
Figure 4: Hybrid coding of fibres.
Figure 5: Spatially coded microfibres for three-dimensional tissue culture.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from the NRL (National Research Laboratory) programme, the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF), Republic of Korea (No. 20110020455), basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (No. R11-2008-044-02002-0) and the Korea Research and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) funded by the Korea government (KRF; No. KRF-2008-220-D00133).

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Author notes

  1. Kwang Ho Lee

    Present address: Present address: Department of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, Kangwon National University, Hyoja 2-dong, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do, 200-701, Republic of Korea,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Health Science, Korea University, Jeongneung-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-703, Republic of Korea

    Edward Kang, Gi Seok Jeong, Yoon Young Choi, Kwang Ho Lee & Sang-Hoon Lee

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Kwang Ho Lee

  3. Department of Medicine, Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 65 Landsdowne Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Ali Khademhosseini

  4. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Ali Khademhosseini

  5. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

    Ali Khademhosseini

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  1. Edward Kang
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Contributions

E.K. designed and carried out the experiments and prepared most of the data; G.S.J. carried out an analytical study of the valve system and assisted with the experiments; Y.Y.C. carried out the cell-based evaluation; K.H.L. optimized the material and developed the flow analysis; A.K. consulted on the manuscript and contributed in writing the paper; S-H.L. proposed the idea, managed the research process and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Kwang Ho Lee or Sang-Hoon Lee.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Kang, E., Jeong, G., Choi, Y. et al. Digitally tunable physicochemical coding of material composition and topography in continuous microfibres. Nature Mater 10, 877–883 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3108

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