Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Ascona 2026

Mechanobiology of Infection

Poster Abstracts

23-POS Board 23 AN ANALYTICAL MODEL TO GUIDE THE DESIGN OF MECHANICALLY ACTIVE ORGAN-ON-A-CHIP DEVICES Giovanni Savorana 1 ; Howard A Stone 1,2 ; 1 Princeton University, Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA 2 Princeton University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton, NJ, USA The progress of infections is largely determined by the complex mechanical features experienced by pathogens and host cells at infection sites. The rapidly evolving organ-on-a-chip technology provides promising platforms to study host-pathogen interactions in realistic environments, where relevant features of infection sites can be mimicked and controlled at the microscale. The foundational device in the organ-on-a-chip field integrates a mechanically active culture substrate for tissues within a microfluidic channel. The substrate consists of a thin PDMS membrane fixed to the channel side walls, which separates it into independent upper and lower flow domains. The substrate is actuated by applying vacuum to two side chambers, which bends the channel side walls and stretches the membrane to mimic physiological tissue motion. This simple and versatile device design allows culturing different tissues on opposite sides of the membrane, while flowing different fluids or gases in the upper and lower sections of the channel. As a result, the device can mimic tissue-tissue interfaces, both at air-liquid interfaces or at boundaries between regions perfused by different bodily fluids. While publicly available fabrication protocols have made this technology broadly accessible for the study of host-microbe interactions, quantitative relationships between applied pressure, membrane strain, and device geometric and material parameters are not currently available beyond numerical simulations. This gap limits the ability to adapt the platform to new applications with specific experimental constraints. Here, we present an analytical model of the device, based on plate theory, that relates applied vacuum pressure to membrane strain as a function of geometric parameters and material properties. The resulting expression defines the range of accessible strains within the experimentally available pressure range, enabling rapid design optimization for new applications and facilitating broader adoption of mechanically active organ-on-a-chip devices in infection mechanobiology studies.

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