Gene-editing tools are leading to a new era of personalized medicine and healthcare, and there is strong demand for the development of scalable technologies to edit the genomes of individual cells with high efficiency and speed. Towards this goal, microfluidic systems have emerged as a promising technology that facilitates intracellular delivery of biomolecular cargo based on rapid cell squeezing. As microfluidic technologies transition from conceptual prototypes to functional tools, there is a need to develop next-generation platforms with sustainable processing throughputs where a key objective is to avoid cell clogging. We report a versatile method to passivate microfluidic channels based on noncovalent lipid bicelle technology, leading to dramatic improvements in blocking efficiency against nonspecific protein adsorption and cell adhesion as compared to covalent polymer options. The functional properties of supported lipid bilayers formed <i>via</i> bicelle attachment on both glass and polydimethylsiloxane surfaces were evaluated, including membrane fluidity, passivation against nonspecific protein adsorption, and inhibition of cell attachment. This surface functionalization approach is now being explored to coat constricted microfluidic devices for the intracellular delivery of biomolecules into cells. This bicelle-based coating strategy enables inhibition of nonspecific protein and cell attachment and is poised to increase the device lifetimes and efficiency of cell transfection.<br/>

Supported lipid bilayer microfluidics for gene delivery

256th National Meeting (2018)

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