Alvéole is a French company based in Paris and founded in 2010 by Quattrocento, a business accelerator company in the life science field, in collaboration with researchers from the

French National Center for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

with expertise in

bioengineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...

and cell imaging. Alvéole is specialized in the development of devices for controlling microenvironment ''in vitro''. Its first product is Primo, a contactless and maskless photopatterning device allowing researchers to control the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

(via

microfabrication Microfabrication is the process of fabricating miniature structures of micrometre scales and smaller. Historically, the earliest microfabrication processes were used for integrated circuit fabrication, also known as "semiconductor manufacturing" ...

) and

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

(via

micropatterning Micropatterning is the art of miniaturisation of patterns. Especially used for electronics, it has recently become a standard in biomaterials engineering and for fundamental research on cellular biology by mean of soft lithography. It generally u ...

) of cell microenvironment.

Products

Alvéole's first product is Primo, a photopatterning device which can be docked on standard

inverted microscope An inverted microscope is a microscope with its light source and condenser on the top, above the stage pointing down, while the objectives and turret are below the stage pointing up. It was invented in 1850 by J. Lawrence Smith, a faculty membe ...

s. Primo photopatterning technique is based on LIMAP technology and combines a maskless and contactless

photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...

system controlled by a dedicated software (Leonardo) and a specific photo-initiator. This system modulate UV-light illumination through an array of micromirrors (

digital micromirror device The digital micromirror device, or DMD, is the microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) that is the core of the trademarked DLP projection technology from Texas Instruments (TI). Texas Instrument's DMD was created by solid-state physicist and ...

). The UV light is then projected through the objective of the microscope onto the substrate in order to either perform microfabrication or protein micropatterning. -

Microfabrication Microfabrication is the process of fabricating miniature structures of micrometre scales and smaller. Historically, the earliest microfabrication processes were used for integrated circuit fabrication, also known as "semiconductor manufacturing" ...

: The modulated UV light is projected on a photosensitive resist. The cured

photoresist A photoresist (also known simply as a resist) is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronic industry. T ...

can then be used as a mold to deposit

PDMS PDMS may refer to: * Palm Desert Middle School, a middle school in Palm Desert, California * Plant Design Management System * Plasma desorption mass spectrometry * Point-Defence Missile System * Polydimethylsiloxane, a silicon-based organic polymer ...

and generate microstructured PDMS chips. - Protein

: The modulated UV light is projected onto a standard cell culture substrate previously coated with an anti-fouling polymer and reacts with the photo-initiator to locally degrade this coating. Adhesion proteins can then be adsorbed on the illuminated area only, allowing for the creation of proteins micropatterns on which cells can adhere.

Applications

adhesions proteins with a sub-cellular resolution, Primo enables to control

cell adhesion Cell adhesion is the process by which cells interact and attach to neighbouring cells through specialised molecules of the cell surface. This process can occur either through direct contact between cell surfaces such as cell junctions or indir ...

and isolate single cells under highly reproducible conditions. This allows cell biology researchers from various fields – such as mechanobiology,

toxicology Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating expo ...

immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

s – to control or study intracellular mechanisms or screen the effect of molecules on cell functions. On a larger scale, Primo also makes it possible to control complex cellular arrangements, to study

cell migration Cell migration is a central process in the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Tissue formation during embryonic development, wound healing and immune responses all require the orchestrated movement of cells in particular dire ...

axon guidance Axon guidance (also called axon pathfinding) is a subfield of neural development concerning the process by which neurons send out axons to reach their correct targets. Axons often follow very precise paths in the nervous system, and how they mana ...

. Furthermore, the micropatterning process with Primo can be performed on microstructures' sides, top or bottom, making it possible to confine single cells or multicellular arrangements in three-dimension. One last known possible application is the

photopolymerization In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many fo ...

of photo-sensitive materials, such as resins for microfabrication or photosensitive hydrogel to include

rheological Rheology (; ) is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state, but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an appli ...

cues in cell microenvironment or to create permeable membranes in microfluidic channels.

References

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External links

Official Website
Biotechnology companies of France Cell biology Microfluidics Lithography (microfabrication)