<figcaption>Phase contrast image of human microvascular epithelial cells grown in a single layer microfluidic cell culture chip under constant perfusion. Credit: Courtesy of Divya Nalayanda and Fizan Abdullah / Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Baltimore, Md.</figcaption>
Phase contrast image of human microvascular epithelial cells grown in a single layer microfluidic cell culture chip under constant perfusion. Credit: Courtesy of Divya Nalayanda and Fizan Abdullah / Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Baltimore, Md.

User:
Fizan Abdullah, Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Baltimore, Md.

Project:
Studying the alveolar capillary membrane at the air/liquid interface of the lung.

Problem:
In the lung, cells that line up on opposing sides of a basement membrane are subject to micromechanical forces such as respiration and 3-D constraints. Existing pulmonary cell-culture techniques don't model such fluid flow stress.

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Solution:
Inspired by microfluidic liver culture, Abdullah put a handful of bioengineering students to work on a solution. They began by putting a half-dollar-sized PDMS plastic device with four 10 mm-diameter microchannels atop a glass slide, and...

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