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SUMMARY:Virtual MEchanics GAthering -MEGA- Seminar: Talk1 - Granular hydro
 gels as novel bioinks for 3D printing of artificial soft tissues\; Talk2 -
  Immobilizing different types of drops in microfluidic trapping devices
DTSTART:20201008T161500
DTEND:20201008T173000
DTSTAMP:20260509T055046Z
UID:2310e6af19d6fb453ecb52bb3ab55c6979641db25b677e65cad79f02
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Matteo Hirsch & Michael Kessler (SMaL\, EPFL)\nGranular hydrog
 els as novel bioinks for 3D printing of artificial soft tissues\, by Matt
 eo Hirsch (SMaL\, EPFL)\nHydrogels are among the first biomaterials expres
 sly designed for their use in biomedicine. However\, state-of-the-art appl
 ications of hydrogels are severely limited because they are typically eith
 er too soft or too brittle such that they cannot be used for load-bearing 
 applications. At present\, synthetic hydrogels are still far from reaching
  mechanical performances similar to that of their biological counterparts.
  One of the main reasons behind this difference is their poor internal arr
 angement. Indeed\, nature is able to fabricate soft biological tissues enc
 ompassing highly ordered\, hierarchical structures with locally varying co
 mpositions. Inspired by nature\, we propose to use microgels as building b
 locks for the fabrication of 3D printed granular materials. Moreover\, we 
 investigate the effect of different processing parameters on the rheologic
 al behavior of jammed microgel solutions and on the mechanical performance
  of granular hydrogels.\n\nImmobilizing different types of drops in microf
 luidic trapping devices\, by Michael Kessler (SMaL\, EPFL)\nMany natural
  materials display unique mechanical properties that are\, at least in par
 ts\, a result of the locally varying compositions of these materials. Bio-
 inspired materials usually cannot reach similar sets of mechanical propert
 ies than their natural counterparts. A contributing reason for this differ
 ence is that they typically possess homogeneous compositions. A possibilit
 y to fabricate soft\, structured materials with locally varying compositio
 ns is the use of reagent-loaded drops as building blocks. In my talk\, I w
 ill present a microfluidic device that allows immobilization of drops load
 ed with different reagents at well-defined positions using capillary trapp
 ing. I will show how we can vary the trapping force of traps to achieve a 
 selective immobilization of only one type of drops. I will further present
  a mathematical model that predicts the trapping strength of traps dependi
 ng on their geometry\, which facilitates the design of such devices. To co
 nclude\, I will demonstrate an example of how immobilized drops can be tra
 nsformed into soft materials with locally varying composition. This techno
 logy likely opens up new possibilities for the design of structured\, load
 -bearing hydrogels\, as well as for the next generation of soft actuators 
 and sensors.
LOCATION:epfl.zoom.us/s/98393329833 Room Passcode: 349948
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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