Endothelial and epithelial cells usually grow on a curved environment, at the surface of organs, which many techniques have tried to reproduce. Here a simple method is proposed to control curvature of the substrate. Prestrained thin elastomer films are treated by infrared laser irradiation in order to rigidify the surface of the film. Wrinkled morphologies are produced upon stress relaxation for irradiation doses above a critical value. Wrinkle wavelength and depth are controlled by the prestrain, the laser power, and the speed at which the laser scans the film surface. Stretching of elastomer substrates with a “sand clock”‐width profile enables the generation of a stress gradient, which results in patterns of wrinkles with a depth gradient. Thus, different combinations of topography changes on the same substrate can be generated. The wavelength and the depth of the wrinkles, which have the characteristic values within a range of several tens of µm, can be dynamically regulated by the substrate reversible stretching. It is shown that these anisotropic features are efficient substrates to control polarization of cell shapes and orientation of their migration. With this approach a flexible tool is provided for a wide range of applications in cell biophysics studies.
Continuous progress of personalized medicine is insistently calling the pharmaceutical sector to increase product variability more than ever before. One of the challenges consists in personalization of the drug release rates and doses from drug‐containing media. Herein is introduced an innovative methodology which resolves this problem by combining inkjet printing and rolling up procedure, allowing for the production of capsules with tailorable distributions of medical compounds. The prototype capsules consist of rolled‐up polymeric films over which fluorescent probes have been deposited via inkjet printing prior to rolling. The position of the probes inside the capsules are determined by the printed 2D pattern. The delay and the rate of the release of the probes in dissolution media can be shaped by the number of rolls and the position of the drug reservoir on the polymeric film before rolling. The innovative method proposed in the paper paves the way to a novel family of drug delivery devices with a broad range of therapeutic applications and it stands alongside other additive manufacturing techniques but allows to avoid their usual constraints.
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