Sphere Fluidics, a company commercialising single cell analysis systems, and ClexBio, a solutions provider for tissue engineering and single-cell techniques, today announced the launch of the biocompatible CYTRIX Microfluidic Hydrogel kit.
The kit combines ClexBio’s CYTRIX Hydrogel with Sphere Fluidics’ specially designed Pico-Gen double aqueous biochip to enable what the companies describe as “defined, reproducible and tailorable hydrogel microstructures for 3D cell culture, organoids and single-cell analysis”. The kit is designed to allow researchers to study valuable cells over many weeks rather than days in defined microenvironments that mimic the natural extracellular matrix.
The CYTRIX Hydrogel is claimed to overcome the challenges of existing microfluidic hydrogel formation techniques, such as clogging, finicky temperature control or time-critical mixing procedures. It offers cytocompatibility and microfluidic-optimised gelation kinetics, the companies say, providing researchers with a cell-friendly solution to reduce the effect of harmful temperatures, pH changes and use of UV-light required for existing hydrogel formation techniques. Paired with Sphere Fluidics’ double aqueous biochip and microfluidics, the hydrogel enables encapsulation of mammalian cells, bacteria, and other microorganisms in a homogeneous and defined extracellular matrix that supports cell viability.
Dr Xin Li, Associate Director of Science at Sphere Fluidics said: “The CYTRIX Microfluidic Hydrogel kit mimics the 3D microenvironment and help researchers explore the potential of hydrogel-based microfluidics in tissue engineering, drug discovery and regenerative medicine over many weeks.”
Dr Armend Håti, CEO and Co-Founder of ClexBio said: “This exciting collaboration with Sphere Fluidics has enabled us to deliver one of the first commercial solutions that allows simple and cell-friendly formation of cell-laden microgels, lengthening the time that researchers can study the contents of microspheres.”