A method for separating cells may include providing a sample having at least two different types of cell, contacting the sample with a cell culture substrate comprising a stimulus-responsive polymer layer, subjecting the cell culture substrate and the cells to medium conditions to where the cells adhere to the cell culture substrate, and modifying the medium conditions to decrease the adherence of one of the cells types to the cell culture substrate. The method may further include separating the cells released from the cell culture substrate from the cells still adhered to the cell culture substrate.

The present invention relates to a composite membrane. The composite membrane includes: an elastic polymer substrate having a first surface processed by a surface modification; and a thermosensitive conductive layer formed on the first surface by performing a co-polymerization process, allowing an electrical current to pass through, and altering a hydrophilicity of a membrane surface in response to a change of a temperature.

Degradable hollow shell particles are disclosed that can encapsulate cells within the hollow inner cavity that allows for the high-throughput screening and sorting of the encapsulated cells based on their phenotypic properties. The solid-phase of the particle is porous such that solution exchange can occur between the external environment and the interior cavity. Further, the solid-phase contains degradable crosslinkers and can be degraded to release enclosed biological entities. An example embodiment consists of encapsulating a cell within the hollow shell particle, allowing the cell to accumulate biomass, selecting hollow shell particles based on accumulated biomass, and degrading the hollow shell particles to release the cells and develop hyper-producing cell lines. Exemplary cell types include microalgae, mammalian cells, bacteria, yeast, and fungi.

Dynamic polymer surfaces are provided that include alternating micropatterns of adhesive domains and environmental stimuli-responsive repulsive domains, where application of a select environmental stimulus activates polymer structures of the repulsive domains to change conformation with respect to the adhesive domains. The dynamic polymer surfaces are useful for sorting, screening, and enriching target particles (such as cells) in a sample and for culturing and harvesting cells. Products, such as cell culture systems, including the dynamic polymer surfaces are also provided.

The invention provides a microfluidic device comprising at least one cell culture chamber, the at least one cell culture chamber being connected to at least two openings, the device being configured to supply at least one physiologically active substance from at least one of the openings to the at least one cell culture chamber in such a manner as to form a concentration gradient or concentration gradients in the at least one chamber when cells and a hydrogel are introduced into the at least one cell culture chamber to culture the cells in a 3D-gel medium.

Provided herein are methods and systems for bio-printing of three-dimensional organs and organoids. Also provided herein are bio-printed three-dimensional organs and organoids for use in the generation and/or the assessment of immunological products and/or immune responses. Also provided herein are methods and system for bio-printing three-dimensional matrices.

The present invention provides compositions comprising aligned fibers of electrospun PNIPAAm and poly (ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) (denoted PNIPAAm/PCL fibers). The PNIPAAm/PCL compositions enable enhanced growth and detachment of intact anisotropic cell sheets. The compositions do not require chemical modification or resource-intensive techniques, thus saving time and expense, and have the potential to generate tissue-specific, aligned cell sheets for transplant studies.

There are provided a cell culture substrate that enables efficient spheroid formation for cells and can form spheroids having a uniform size and an arbitrary shape at a high cell viability, a method for producing the cell culture substrate, and a method of producing spheroids in which the cell culture substrate is used and a cell viability inside of the spheroids is excellent. A cell culture substrate includes a substrate and a stimulus-responsive polymer coated on the substrate, wherein the stimulus-responsive polymer is a block copolymer having a water-insoluble block segment and a stimulus-responsive block segment, and the cell culture substrate includes the following two regions (A) and (B): (A) an island-shaped region having cell proliferation properties and stimulus responsiveness and having an area of 0.001 to 5 mm.sup.2; and (B) a region adjacent to the region (A) and having no cell proliferation properties.

The subject invention concerns materials and methods for expansion of stem cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), that improve translational success of the cells in the treatment of various conditions. The subject invention utilizes cell self-aggregation as a non-genetic means to enhance their therapeutic potency in a microcarrier bioreactor. In one embodiment of the method cells are cultured in a container or vessel in the presence of thermally responsive microcarriers (TRMs) wherein cells adhere to the surface of the TRMs. After a period of time the cell culture temperature is reduced so that the cells detach from the TRMs. The detached cells are allowed to form 3D aggregates. The 3D aggregates can be collected and treated to dissociate the cells. Dissociated cells can then be used for transplantation in methods of treatment or for in vitro characterization and study.

A cell culture method and a cell culture device used with the cell culture method allow mass-producing a three-layer blood-brain barrier (BBB) in vitro model including a vascular endothelial cell, a pericyte, and an astrocyte. A cell culture method enhances mass production of the three-layer BBB models. A cell culture method includes injecting a suspended cell culture medium into an outer surface of a porous membrane in a cell culture insert, seeding the cell culture medium with an astrocyte to culture the astrocyte, seeding the cell culture insert being inverted with a pericyte to culture the pericyte, seeding the cell culture insert with a temperature-sensitive vascular endothelial cell embedded in a temperature-sensitive gel to culture the vascular endothelial cell, and melting the temperature-sensitive gel.