The Beebe Laboratory
Faculty > David J. Beebe
David J. Beebe
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
djbeebe@wisc.edu
Research Description
Basic cell culture techniques have changed little in almost a century. By far the most dominate format for cell culture is the Petri dish or similar (e.g. multi well plate). Slowly this is beginning to change as our ability to create materials, geometries and even systems at the cellular scale continues to grow and mature. At the same time, the importance of the three-dimensional microenvironment in cancer biology is increasingly demonstrated. We have begun to explore a variety of engineered in vitro microenvironments to probe the nature of cell interactions that regulate cell behavior. These environments range from in silico lineage models to three-dimensional co-culture constructs to simple convective-free culture systems to high throughput assay systems. While our particular interests center around cancer biology, the constructs have broad potential application across cell biology. Our goal is a holistic approach to understanding cell behavior that integrates in vitro cellular scale engineering to recapitulate important in vivo microenvironmental characteristics in ways that provide biological insights, aid in diagnosis/treatment and enhance discovery.
Selected References
Meyvantsson, I., J. Warrick, and D. J. Beebe, “ Automated cell culture in high density tubeless microfluidic device arrays,” Lab on a Chip, vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 717-724, 2008.
Paguirigan A, and D. J. Beebe, “Microfluidics, meet cell biology: bridging the gap by validation and application of microscale techniques for cell biological assays,” Bioessays, Vol. 30, pp. 811-821, 2008.
Warrick, J.W., W. L. Murphy, D. J. Beebe, “Screening the cellular microenvironment: a role for microfluidics,” IEEE Reviews of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 1, pp. 75-93, 2008.
Sung, K. E., G. Su, C. Pehlke, S. Trier, K. W Eliceiri, P. Keely, A. Friedl and D. J. Beebe Control of 3D collagen matrix polymerization for reproducible human mammary fibroblast cell culture in microfluidic devices,” Biomaterials, Vol. 30, pp. 4833-4841, 2009
Domenech. M., H. Yu, J. Warrick, N. M. Badders, I. Meyvantsson, C. M. Alexander, and D. J. Beebe, “Cellular observations enabled by microculture: paracrine signaling and population demographics,” Integrative Biology, Vol. 1, pp. 267 - 274, 2009.