PhD student 

Supervisors: Fabrice SONCIN and Dominique COLLARD

LIMMS/CNRS-IIS, The University of Tokyo, Lille, France
SMMiL-E project
BioMEMS group, IEMN, Lille, France


Contact: elise.delannoy@univ-lille.fr

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Blood vessel on chip
  • Endothelial barrier
  • Vascular permeability

EDUCATION

  • 2018 – MSc, Electrical Engineering Dept., Université de Lille, France
  • 2018 – Engineering degree, Ecole Centrale de Lille – Villeneuve d’ascq, France

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

  • 2018 – R&D Interneship, Fluigent – Le Kremlin Bicêtre, France
  • 2017 – Lab Internship, DTU Nanotech – Copenhagen, Denmark 

SELECTED ONGOING PROJECTS

  • Multi-layered human blood vessels-on-chips
    (supported by FEDER, Région HdF (comp.), I-SITE ULNE, HCS Pharma)

    Highly efficient and simple methods for creating structurally sound blood vessels-on-chips are needed in order to scale-up 3D screening assays of vascular functions. Here, microchannels were designed using the vascular finger patterning technique that was adapted in order to create lumens with a chosen internal diameter inside a collagen solution and to simultaneously seed the lumens with human primary endothelial cells. 

This method was further refined to create blood vessels composed of two concentric, distinct, and closely positioned layers of human endothelial and perivascular cells arranged around the hollow lumen. This allowed for the formation of structurally correct blood vessels-on-chips which could be constituted, at will, of either only endothelial cells or of both cell types, so as to be able to distinguish the endothelial reactivity to drugs independently or not of the presence of perivascular cells. The established vessels showed a tight vascular barrier and were fully reactive to permeability and to inflammatory factors. The presence of perivascular cells markedly increased the tightness of the vascular barrier and lowered its response to the vasopermeant thrombin. The design allowed for the establishment and testing of several tens of blood vessels simultaneously in a standard multi-well format suitable for high-throughput drug screening.

Microfluidic devices are a turning point to answer complex biological questions. They aim at bridging the gap between too simple 2D in-vitro assays and costly, time consuming, and species-specific animal models.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  • E. Delannoy,  A. Treizebre & F. Soncin, New microfluidic designs for high-throughput analysis of angiogenesis, blood vessel permeability and endothelial activation. MicroTAS proceedings, 845-6, 2020.