Sphere Fluidics and ClexBio Introduce CYTRIX Microfluidic Hydrogel Kit

Sphere Fluidics, a provider of single cell analysis systems, and ClexBio, a provider of solutions for tissue engineering and single-cell techniques, now offer a biocompatible CYTRIX Microfluidic Hydrogel Kit, which they launched in June 2021.

The kit combines ClexBio’s novel CYTRIX Hydrogel with Sphere Fluidics’ specially designed Pico-Gen double aqueous biochip to allow the plug-and-play generation of defined, reproducible and tailorable hydrogel microstructures for three-dimensional (3D) cell culture, organoids, single-cell analysis, and other applications. These capabilities allow researchers to study valuable cells over many weeks rather than days in defined microenvironments that mimic the natural extracellular matrix, the companies stated in a June 7, 2021 press release.

The novel hydrogel overcomes the challenges of existing microfluidic hydrogel formation techniques, such as clogging, temperature control difficulties, or time-critical mixing procedures, and offers cytocompatibility and microfluidic-optimized gelation kinetics. These benefits provide researchers with a cell-friendly solution to reduce the effect of harmful temperatures, pH changes, and use of ultraviolet light required for existing hydrogel formation techniques. Paired with the Sphere Fluidics Pico-Gen double aqueous biochip and microfluidics, the CYTRIX Hydrogel enables efficient encapsulation of mammalian cells, bacteria, and other microorganisms in a homogeneous and defined extracellular matrix that supports cell viability.

“The CYTRIX Microfluidic Hydrogel Kit mimics the 3D microenvironment and helps researchers explore the potential of hydrogel-based microfluidics in tissue engineering, drug discovery and regenerative medicine over many weeks,” said Xin Li, associate director of Science at Sphere Fluidics, in the press release.

“This exciting collaboration with Sphere Fluidics has enabled us to deliver one of the first commercial solutions that allows simple and cell-friendly formation of cell-laden microgels, lengthening the time that researchers can study the contents of microspheres,” said Armend Håti, CEO and co-founder of ClexBio, in the press release.

Source: Sphere Fluidics