Title:
Convective intracellular macromolecule delivery for cell engineering applications

dc.contributor.advisor Sulchek, Todd A.
dc.contributor.advisor Roy, Krishnendu
dc.contributor.author Liu, Anna
dc.contributor.committeeMember Waller, Edmund K.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Alexeev, Alexander
dc.contributor.committeeMember Prausnitz, Mark
dc.contributor.department Biomedical Engineering (Joint GT/Emory Department)
dc.date.accessioned 2021-06-10T13:55:21Z
dc.date.available 2021-06-10T13:55:21Z
dc.date.created 2020-05
dc.date.issued 2020-04-25
dc.date.submitted May 2020
dc.date.updated 2021-06-10T13:55:22Z
dc.description.abstract Efficient intracellular delivery of target macromolecules remains a major obstacle in cell engineering, cell labeling, and other biomedical applications. Current standard methods of intracellular delivery, such as viral transduction and electroporation, do not meet the growing needs in the cell engineering field for cost-effective, scalable, and efficient delivery that maintains cell viability. This thesis work has discovered the cell biophysical phenomenon of convective intracellular macromolecule delivery using mechanically-induced, transient cell volume exchange. Ultrafast microfluidic cell compressions (<1 ms) are used to cause brief, deformation-induced cell volume loss followed by volume recovery through uptake of extracellular fluid. Macromolecules suspended in the surrounding fluid enter the cell on convective fluid currents. Convective delivery is shown to bypass endosomal transport and is capable of achieving high intracellular delivery for a broad range of molecule types and sizes. Cell volume exchange is shown to be dependent on strain rate, magnitude of compression, and cell physical properties. The results of this thesis have informed the design and optimization of a high-throughput microfluidic technology capable of efficiently delivering a wide variety of macromolecule payloads to various cell types while maintaining viability and proliferation. We harness this cell volume exchange behavior for convective intracellular delivery of large macromolecules of interest, including plasmids (>2 MDa) and particles (>30 nm), while maintaining high cell viability (>95%). Successful experiments in CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and intracellular gene expression analysis demonstrate potential to overcome the most prohibitive challenges in intracellular delivery for cell engineering.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/64613
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Microfluidics
dc.subject Biomechanics
dc.subject Intracellular delivery
dc.subject Cell engineering
dc.subject Gene editing
dc.subject CRISPR
dc.subject Intracellular analysis
dc.subject intracellular labeling
dc.title Convective intracellular macromolecule delivery for cell engineering applications
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Sulchek, Todd A.
local.contributor.advisor Roy, Krishnendu
local.contributor.corporatename Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
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relation.isAdvisorOfPublication fde5c944-7bcf-49c6-a215-9ca0bfa729b0
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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