After
receiving the chips back from wire bonding, there are a few more steps before
we can test them. First comes epoxy painting, then the second etching, and
lastly sterilization. Now the chips are ready for cell culturing: ventricular
rat cells will be seeded on the fibronectin coated chip and allowed to grow for
three days. During this time, the gripers close around the cells, ideally
enclosing only one cell each. On day three, we record extracellular action
potentials with the electrodes embedded in the grippers, and we stain the cells
with Fluo-4 in order to image the calcium fluxes around the cells. After
obtaining all this data, we look for closed grippers with a cell inside, and
try to match the electric signals with the images. Right now, I’m pushing to
use another imaging technique, confocal microscopy, since it provides better
temporal resolution needed to correlate it with the extracellular recordings.
In the meantime, outside of the lab, I’m writing the necessary Matlab scripts
to analyze the data. Specifically, we need to filter the signal, detect action
potentials, sort the voltage peaks, and calculate the difference in firing time
between electrodes of the same gripper.
These
past two weekends I have travelled outside of Belgium. Kevin and I visited
Copenhagen for a few days, and the crossed Øresund Bridge to Malmö, Sweden.
Copenhagen was expensive, but we bought a Copenhagen Pass which allowed us to
go to several museums, tours, and use public transportation for the whole
duration of our stay. Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest operating amusement
park in the world, the Louisiana Museum, and the street food by the waterfront are
some of the experiences I will never forget. Malmö was rainy and quiet, which
made for a good, relaxing last day before coming back to work.
Last
weekend was CTT Weekend (the group I work in, “Cell & Tissue Technology), a
once-a-year retreat with most of the group. We rented a house on the coastline
of Zeeland, in the Netherlands. Even though one of the days it was rainy, we
still had lots of fun playing games inside, going to the beach at midnight, barbecuing under the porch, and relaxing in the sauna.
