A high-throughput system to probe and direct biological functions driven by complex hemodynamic environments

One of the most critical challenges in modeling physiological and pathological disease states is the requirement for incorporating dynamic effects into the cellular microenvironment. In particular, vascular biology research has been limited by the inability to culture endothelial and other vascular cells in the presence of a hemodynamic waveform, which is critical to recapitulation of the in vivo microenvironment and to the realization of physiologically relevant phenotypic and genotypic expression. Here we describe technologies capable of applying precise hemodynamic waveforms to cultured endothelial and other cell types in multiwell plates using micromechanical motor-driven cones spinning in each of 96 microwells. Physiological responses are demonstrated, including atherogenic and atheroprotective morphologic and gene expression profiles. This technology has the capability to enable rapid and efficient biological screening for a wide range of drug development applications.