UCF Faculty, Graduate Student Develop Organ-on-a-Chip Technology for Industry

UCF researchers are developing powerful possibilities for industrially aligned research to support advances in healthcare with organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technology.

OOC is built on a miniature glass wafer with human cells that mimics the function of human organs. The chips contain tiny channels lined with living cells, allowing researchers to study how tissues respond to medications, infections or disease in ways that traditional lab methods cannot.

College of Engineering and Computer Science Associate Professor Swaminathan Rajaraman and electrical engineering doctoral student Surbhi Tidke have built on that concept by measuring transepithelial electrical resistance, or TEER - a key indicator of how well cells form protective barriers.

By integrating TEER-on-a-chip, researchers can monitor barrier integrity in real time, offering a noninvasive tool for diagnosing and studying diseases that affect tissues such as those in the lungs, intestines or brain.

Electrical engineering doctoral student Surbhi Tidke (left) and Professor Swaminathan Rajaraman (right) working in the lab (Photo by Antoine Hart)

"Using TEER-on-a-chip, we measure resistance by sending a very small, harmless current across a layer of cells to see how much the cells push back against it," Tidke says. "If they are packed tightly together, the current has a harder time getting through, which means the cell layers are healthy. If they are loose or leaky, the current passes more easily, showing there is some problem."

Researchers say a loose or leaky response can point to damage, disease or other problems on the tissue and this technology can aid personalized healthcare solutions.

"It's like a mini lab, where pharmacists or doctors will be able to see in real time how a particular medication or treatment causes the individual's sample cells to react," she says.

Rajaraman, who is also a faculty member in UCF's NanoScience Technology Center, explains that one of the unique aspects of their research is the transparent electrodes, or wires to facilitate real-time measurements - without blocking the view.

"If you have transparent electrodes, which is what we've been able to create, now, you can get simultaneous real time electrical measurements as you're imaging these things optically as well," says Rajaraman. "It's like a multi-modal sensor that can do a lot of different things in the electrical and optical domains."

From Lab to Industry

The TEER-on-a-Chip technology is funded by the Multi-functional Integrated System Technology (MIST) Center, a research consortium under the support of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The MIST Center links university researchers with industry partners to commercialize their research.

The new EVOM™ Chip for multiplexed TEER measurement on up to 12 channels is debuting at MPS. (Photo courtesy of World Precision Instruments [WPI])Industry partners World Precision Instruments (WPI) and SynVivo Inc. worked with Tidke and Rajaraman to commercially launch their multiplexed TEER-on-a-Chip platform. Tidke created patterned glass wafers using methods similar to computer chip manufacturing in different designs and sizes, making the technology inexpensive and more adaptable across industries, and simpler for labs with different setups to use.

"Thanks to Surbhi's amazing dedication, we can define things almost on a manufacturing scale now, which is very unique in academia," Rajaraman says. "We've been working with WPI for a few years now, and they have been able to translate this rather quickly into something which is highly scalable, because all the development, designs and testing that we did here in the lab."

Tidke's work on this project was recently published in IEEE Xplore and credits the facilities and resources at UCF, like Rajaraman's NanoBioSensors and Systems lab, the College of Engineering and Computer Science cleanroom and core facilities available at NanoScience Technology Center and Materials Characterization Facility in aiding the development and testing of TEER-on-a-Chip.

"Using all the fantastic facilities at UCF enabled rapid prototyping of TEER chips and testing," Tidke says. "Dr. Rajaraman's lab is like a mini company outside of a real company and he's like a very active CEO. We're all a group of people coming together with one motive to positively contribute to advances in human health."

Rajaraman, who co-founded a startup and joined UCF after working in the industry, explains it's not just the discovery but the delivery of the solutions he and his team help propagate.

"It is extremely important that these kinds of discoveries and new inventions translate very quickly from academic setting into industrial setting," he says. "So that's something that we think we're really facilitating."

Researcher Credentials
Rajaraman is a tenured academic and a successful entrepreneur. He is an associate professor in the NanoScience Technology Center and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UCF. Prior to his academic appointment, he has worked in the MEMS industry and co-founded Axion BioSystems Inc., a world-leader in high-throughput Microelectrode Arrays (MEAs) and MEA systems. He has published more than 100 articles and holds 35 patents and applications.

Tidke is a doctoral student in electrical engineering at UCF who is working on the integration of novel nano materials and electrical sensors into various Organ-On-Chip platforms. She earned her Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Biomedical Engineering from Mumbai University, India, in 2014 and went on to complete her Master of Technology (M.Tech) in Electrical Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India in 2016. Prior to her doctoral studies, Tidke worked as a research associate at Temasek Laboratories, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where she contributed to device fabrication and high-frequency characterization of mmWave components. She has authored 5 peer-reviewed publications.

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