Background
Özkale Edelmann studied Chemical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University for her undergraduate education (2005-2009). She received her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at ETH Zürich (2009-2011) where she earned her PhD in 2016. She carried out her doctoral work in the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab and focused her research on small-scale robotics for biomedical applications. Following her PhD, she briefly worked as a postdoctoral fellow simultaneously at the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab (ETH Zürich) and the MicroBioRobotics Systems Laboratory (EPFL). In 2016, she was awarded with an Early Postdoc Mobility Grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation to conduct her postdoctoral research in the Mooney Lab for Cell and Tissue Engineering at Harvard University (2017-2020). The project centered on engineering microscale actuators for investigating stem cell mechanobiology. Berna Özkale Edelmann joined TUM in 2021 as a tenure-track assistant professor and founded the Microrobotic Bioengineering Lab, MRBL, where she develops robotic biomanipulation technologies for regenerative medicine.
Title
Microrobot-assisted tissue construction for diagnostic applications
Abstract
The integration of small-scale robotics in biomedical sciences has led to unprecedent capabilities. Despite the advances in the field, ensuring user-defined communication between the devices and living matter, specifically mammalian cells, is still challenging. The ability to communicate with individual cells during cellular processes is particularly crucial in tissue engineering applications and high-throughput diagnostic systems. In an effort to address this challenge, we developed photothermally powered microrobots, capable of interacting with mammalian cells in a user-defined manner. The microrobots rely on thermophoretic convection to navigate in three-dimensional (3D) workspaces and provide direct feedback on environmental conditions. We use the microrobots to manipulate a variety of different types of human cells in 3D and demonstrate its potential as a tool to build microtissues. The system allows pharmacological investigations on cancer cells, indicating its potentially attractive use for diagnostic applications.