Going with the slow flow

摘要

A simple microfluidic system for growing cells in concentration gradients will be useful for testing anticancer drugs and studying stem cell development, say researchers from Korea. Sang-Hoon Lee and colleagues from Korea University in Seoul have developed a technique that uses osmosis to generate concentration gradients. The force of osmosis pumps two solutions into a channel, and at the interface where the solutions meet a gradient forms by diffusion of the solutes. Cells can be grown in the gradient to study effects of varying concentrations of external chemicals on their growth.