Dynamic Microconfiner: Biomimetic 3D cell culture

In the past 60 years, we have observed a mind-blowing advancement in our quantitative understanding of life, ranging from bacteria over eukaryotic cells to tissue and even up to full organisms. This advancement has led to new medical treatments at a speed never seen before in human history. However, the impressive success masks a huge problem, pointed out in a series of articles published in Nature named “The replication crisis”. In the past years it has turned out that a major reason for this crisis is common practice of cultivating cells on 2D rigid substrates, which were found to lead to phenotypes showing largely different cellular behaviour in comparison to results found in the organism. in the past 20 years, it has been widely appreciated that controlling the culture conditions used in biological research is a key element to ensure reproducibility. Important aspects are dimensionality of the environment, stiffness of the substrate and as well as on the chemical functionalisation. Thus, the current state of the art biological research urgently requires controlled cultivation systems that allow for mimicking 3D situations, while ideally still compliant with 2D microscopy tools, and the possibility to control elastic properties and protein functionalization of the substrate.