Sphere Fluidics and ClexBio giving away CYTRIX hydrogel kits

Celebrated every 10^th November, World Science Day for Peace and Development highlights the significance of science in society and aims to engage the public in scientific issues. Sphere Fluidics Limited, in partnership with ClexBio, are commemorating the day by giving away 10 CYTRIX microfluidic hydrogel kits! Each kit contains the novel CYTRIX hydrogel, Sphere Fluidics’ Pico-Gen™ double aqueous biochip and Pico-Surf™ surfactant, providing a plug-and-play system for microfluidic single-cell hydrogel encapsulation.

Building upon the technology developed by Håti et al., 2016, the ready-to-use CYTRIX hydrogel kit overcomes the limitations of existing microfluidic hydrogel formation techniques, such as temperature control or time-critical mixing procedures. The alginate-based hydrogel system provides a unique cell-friendly alternative to existing microfluidic hydrogel formation techniques which require non-physiological temperatures, pH changes, or UV light irradiation.

When using the kit, researchers add their cell suspension to the pre-gel solution and run their experiment with the Pico-Gen™ double aqueous biochip and oil-based Pico-Surf™ surfactant to generate cell-laden hydrogel microbeads. After rinsing to remove the surfactant, users end up with a suspension of encapsulated cells in gel beads for further analysis. Additionally, the non-covalent nature of the CLEX hydrogels renders the gelation process reversible, allowing the release of the entrapped cells if desired.

The biocompatible and microchannel-friendly kit subsequently enables the generation of defined, reproducible, tailorable hydrogel microstructures for 3D cell culture, organoids, single-cell analysis, and many other applications. This allows researchers to individually study valuable cells in defined microenvironments that mimic the natural extracellular matrix over many weeks. 

The 10 entries will be drawn on 30^th November, so enter soon!