Micro- and nanotechnology is a powerful extension to our tool box in the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. MERLN is using and also developing new innovative micro- and nanotechnologies to systematically study and guide cell behavior in vitro. These techniques are employed to produce technically challenging topographies, such as curvatures or hierarchical, lithographic structures, in biocompatible materials on a cellular and even sub-cellular scale. These micro- and nano-engineered substrates allow us to generate precisely controlled and even dynamic microenvironments for single cells and cell clusters in a dish or on a chip.
Taking advantage of the high reproducibility of pattern transfer, these techniques create an important link between machine learning algorithms to systematically generate large libraries of cell culture substrate designs and the systematic screening of cell-material-interactions.