Microfluidic generation of double layer hydrogel structures for the recapitulation of the hematopoietic stem cell niche

The designed device constitutes a reliable and robust tool to generate double hydrogel concentric structures on demand and a realistic approach to build multi- layered cellular hydrogel beads to reproduce in vitro the compartmentalized microenvironment that exist in vivo. Moreover, the presented generation technique uses only passive forces making the procedure especially suitable for the generation of cell constructs. This droplet-based niche mimicry strategy represents a promising technique able to provide optimal requirements for stem cell maintenance and further expansion for clinical applications and opens a wide field of potential applications within uTAS for tissue engineering applications.