Portable microcontact printing device for cell culture

Abstract

In this work, we developed a portable device to perform microcontact printing in a safety cabinet for cell culture. The device was designed to be small and non-bulky, easy to sterilize, while not requiring the use of electricity, and which requires very little manual handling. Moreover, the portable microcontact printer is reproducibly fabricated with a rapid prototyping system, and allows for the easy micropatterning of biomolecules with a resolution ranging from 20 to 500 μm. This opens new horizons in the direct and simple micropatterning of culture dishes and the mimicking and biofabrication of complex architectures of tissues.