Date : 10/10/2011

Internship proposal for : Master 2

Laboratory
Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique de l'Ecole Polytechnique (LadHyX)
UMR 7646 CNRS
Ecole Polytechnique
91120 Palaiseau
Website : www.ladhyx.polytechnique.fr
Main discipline : Physics
Lab director : Jean Marc Chomaz

Mentor
Charles Baroud
email : This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
tel +33 1.69.33.52.61

Subjects
1.: Droplet microfluidics
2.: Soft matter
3.: Cell migration

Tools and methodologies
1.: Microfluidics
2.: Polymers and phase change
3.: Microscopy and image analysis

Summary of lab's interests

Our lab has developed a suite of very advanced droplet manipulation techniques in microchannels. These techniques now allow us to produce droplets on demand and to build arrays of drops. Along with biological collaborators, we have already applied this to the observation of red blood cells, on the scale of a single cell, while controlling the cell oxygenation. We would like to now extend these methods to adherent cells.

Summary of project

The Master's project will consist of developing a protocol for polymerizing liquid drops in microchannels, in order to study the migration of adherent cells. Different approaches to polymerizing the drops can be explored, such as exposing them to UV light or temperature variations. Once that protocol is in place, we will start putting cells inside the polymer drops and studying the migration response to chemical gradients.