DESIGN AND PHYSICAL PARAMETERS IDENTIFICATION AND OPTIMIZATION FOR IN VITRO MICROFLUIDIC MODELS OF TISSUE VASCULAR PERMEABILITY

Vascular biological barriers, such as vascular interfaces, epithelial layers, and tissue boundaries, represent selective partitions that regulate the exchange of fluids, solutes, macromolecules, and cells between anatomical compartments. Therefore, they represent both protective interfaces and major obstacles to molecules penetration into tissues, being the latter the crucial step in any systemic therapeutic approach. This thesis focuses on the design of an innovative microfluidic device capable to better model such phenomenon, by exploiting only physical parameters for mimicking the permeability of biological tissues. The device has been designed using optimized geometries to maximize exchange efficiency, and, by integrating apertures and barriers, achieving micrometric control over laminar flows. The results obtained demonstrate the device's ability to maintain stable gradients, representing a step forward in the reduction of animal testing and in the understanding of pathologies related to tissue transport.