SIMFab: Shared Instrumentation for Micro-bio Fabrication

The project will develop a new core resource dedicated to the area of nano/micro-fabrication of biologically relevant tissue engineering models of the extracellular matrix (ECM) for use in studies by numerous laboratories campus.  These types of materials are increasingly important for biological sciences in areas including cancer, regenerative medicine, pathobiology and more.  The unique integrated 3D nano/microfabrication platform is dubbed SIMFab: Shared Instrumentation for Micro-bio Fabrication.

It will build on existing multiphoton excited (MPE) photochemistry and instrumentation developed in the team’s lab.  SIMFab will bring this instrumentation to new levels of accessibility and usability by being open source and also completely dedicated for use in research collaborations. This microfabrication method is akin to 3D printing but on much finer sizes scales (submicron) and is highly biocompatible where biomimetic devices can be created directly from any soluble proteins, polymers, or hybrids thereof.

This instrument will benefit the UW research community by creating devices for in vitro modeling of disease states including cancers, fibroses, and cardiac disease. It also will synthesize tissue engineering and regenerative medicine scaffolds. The hardware and software designs will be made freely available to the community and will be run as a UW-Madison collaborative resource.

Principal Investigator

• Paul Campagnola
  Professor of Biomedical Engineering
  

Co-Principal Investigator

• Kevin Eliceiri
  Director of LOCI
  

Co-Investigators

• Patricia Keely
  Professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology
• Manish Patankar
  Professor of Obstretics and Gynecology
• Nathan Sandbo
  Assistant Professor of Medicine
• Melissa Skala
  Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering