Developing microfluidic tooling for 3D cell-culture

This thesis admittedly covers a broad range of topics. While our exploration over the last four years has taken us far afield, from developing microfluidic multiplexers to uncovering breakdown modes of 2D material systems, this work was funded by the Vascular Engineering on chip using differentiated Stem Cells (VESCEL) grant of Albert van den Berg and, as such, most chapters make significant steps towards the goal of creating 3D microvascular networks with custom geometry. The first three chapters in particular each build directly towards this goal, by introducing new techniques for the control of the microenvironment around human cells in 3D hydrogels. While some of the last three chapters are related to the goal of microvascular control, they each aim to solve relatively independent technical problems. At the foundation of these six chapters are the lessons we learned while striving and failing to answer deeper or sometimes wholly unrelated questions. We hope that in reading these chapters, other researchers will find a solution to a problem they face or the inspiration to make opportunity out of experiments gone awry.