Shengli Mi, Ph.D
associate professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. 
E-mail: mi.shengli@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn

Professional Biography
Dr. Shengli Mi currently is a full associate professor of Division of Advanced Manufacturing, the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University; Dr. Mi graduated from Northwest A&F University and awarded Ph.D. degree in the same university. Dr. Mi spent one year (2007-2008) as Joint Ph.D. in School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, Cardiff University, UK. Afterwards, he got his post-doctoral training in University of Reading (UK) for 3 years (2008-2010). From 2011 to now, he worked for Graduate school at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, first as lecture then as professor.

Research Field:
Dr. Mi was involved in the bio-manufacturing research area: Bio-manufacturing is an emerging interdisciplinary paradigm in which living cells, biologics, proteins and/or biomaterials are used as basic building blocks for fabrication of in vitro biological structures and/or cellular systems in application to biology, tissue engineering, disease pathogeneses study, drug test and discovery, and cell/tissue/organ-on-a-chip devices. Currently, his research are focused on: (1)Precisely controlled cell assembly and three-dimensional in vitro biological functional body construction; (2) In vitro model with biological functions for the study of biology, pathology and pharmacology; (3) Integration of bio-, micro- and nano-fabrication technology

Abstract:
Microfluidic system for modelling 3D tumour invasion into surrounding stroma and drug screening

Tumour invasion into the surrounding stroma is a critical step in metastasis, and it is necessary to clarify the role of microenvironmental factors in tumour invasion. We present a microfluidic system that simulated and controlled multi-factors of the tumour microenvironment for three-dimensional (3D) assessment of tumour invasion into the stroma. The simultaneous, precise and continuous arrangement of two 3D matrices was visualised to observe the migration of cancer cell populations or single cells by transfecting cells with a fluorescent protein. A vascular endothelial layer was formed to simulate transendothelial transport of nutrients, and its endothelial barrier function was verified by the diffusion of 70-kDa fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-Dextran in 3D matrices. Through high-throughput cell migration tracking observation and statistic evaluation, we clarified that cell density of the tumour directly determined its invasiveness. The results suggested that increased secretion of IL-6 among both cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) and non-cancerous cells (MCF-10A or HDF-n) after co-culture contributes to cancer cell invasiveness, and this was verified by an IL-6 inhibitor assay. Finally, the drug efficacy of paclitaxel was reflected as changes in cancer cell migration ability, viability, and morphology. Together, our microfluidic devices could be a useful tool to study the mechanism of tumour invasion into the stroma and to screen anti-metastatic drugs.