Cell Normalization Using Adhesive Micropatterns

Content & Learning Objective

The most common cell culture method to study cell behavior under different stimuli, is the Petri Dish or its variants in multi-well plates. These systems are easy to use and versatile but still suffer from large cell variability. Reducing cell variability and developing efficient image analysis methodologies are keys in reaching high quality and reproducible results both in fundamental cell biology and in High Content Analysis assays. This hands-on course will introduce you to a powerful technology based on CYTOO’s adhesive micropatterns which normalize cell architecture down to their internal organization. The course will focus on the practical aspects of cell normalization using micropatterns in a model drug assay.  

The theoretical part includes:

• Control of cell architecture and behavior by cell microenvironment engineering
• Introduction to CYTOO’s adhesive micropatterns
• Automated image acquisition and image processing of micropatterned cells
• Live Cell Imaging using micropatterns
• Examples of applications using various micropatterns
• Design of custom micropatterns adapted to your biological questions
• Adhesive micropatterns in High Content Screening and Drug Discovery
• Presentation of a case study
• Reference Cell^TM concept 

The practical part includes:

• Cell seeding experiments on adhesive micropatterns
• Microscope observation of cell spreading on micropatterns
• Acquisition of fluorescence microscope images on the fixed and stained demo samples
• Automated image processing and analysis (using ImageJ)

Target Group

Technical and scientific staff members with initial cell culture experience interested in cell normalization and quantitative cell imaging and analysis; developers of HCA cell-based assays.

Teacher

Dr. Sébastien Degot completed his Ph.D. focused on the characterization of a protein overexpressed in breast cancer at the University Louis Pasteur (France). During his post-doc at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA), he developed high throughput shRNA screens and identified kinases that are essential for lung cancer cell line survival. Now, Dr. Degot is Senior Scientist at CYTOO where he develops applications using micropatterns for cell toxicity studies and RNAi screening.