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Automating Vascular Biology: An End-to-End Automated Workflow for High-Throughput Blood Vessel-on-a-Chip Production
Dawn S Y Lin1,2, Hanieh Mohammad Hashemi1, Kimia Asadi Jozani3
1Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Advanced Healthcare Materials
|January 9, 2026
Summary
Researchers developed an automated organ-on-a-chip platform for scalable fabrication of blood vessel models. This innovation enhances vascular barrier function and alters responses to drugs and inflammation, advancing preclinical testing.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Microfluidics
- Vascular Biology
Background:
- Growing demand for automated organ-on-a-chip (OOC) platforms for reproducible, scalable analysis.
- Need for OOC systems compatible with standard robotic liquid-handling and plate-reading technologies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present an end-to-end automated method for fabricating tubular blood vessel models at scale.
- To introduce the custom 384-well AngioPlate384 platform for integration with automation.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of perfusable blood vessels using the AngioPlate384.
- Embedding over 100 vessels in hydrogel with stromal cells (fibroblasts, pericytes).
- Enabling both luminal and interstitial flow within the models.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated enhanced vascular barrier function through stromal co-culture.
- Observed altered responses of the blood vessel models to chemotherapeutics and inflammatory stressors.
- Successfully generated scalable, customizable blood vessel-on-a-chip models.
Conclusions:
- The AngioPlate384 platform offers a robust and scalable method for generating blood vessel-on-a-chip models.
- Compatibility with automation accelerates adoption of microphysiological systems in pharmaceutical research.
- Facilitates vascular biology studies, disease modeling, and preclinical testing.
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