Modelling of Endothelial Cell Migration and Angiogenesis in Microfluidic Cell Culture Systems

Tumour-induced angiogenesis involves growth of new blood vessels from existing vasculature in response to signals induced by the undernourished part of tumour tissue. Due to high costs and ethical issues associated with in vivo experiments, significant efforts have been undertaken to develop computational models and physiologically relevant 3D in vitro assays to study angiogenesis in a highly controllable and accessible manner. Our goal was to utilize existing modelling techniques and apply them to an in vitro environment to model endothelial cell (EC) migration and angiogenesis inside the tubeless microfluidic angiogenesis assay. Here we leverage two continuum models which are implemented using the Method of Lines and discretized in space using the finite difference approximation. The aim was to simulate EC angiogenic response under different VEGF concentrations and investigate microfluidic device geometry as a potential parameter that can accelerate angiogenesis.M.A.S