Amélie St-Georges-Robillard

Polytechnique Montréal · Department of Engineering Physics

The 5-year survival rate of patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer is less than 45%, in part due to tumors becoming resistant to chemotherapy. This work reports the first use of wide-field hyperspectral fluorescence imaging to study the response of tumor spheroids to chemotherapy. Co-culture spheroids composed of sensitive and resistant...

Simple Summary A major challenge in the treatment of cancer is predicting patients’ responses to anticancer drugs. Thus, preclinical assays that reflect patients’ responses to treatments are of utmost importance in clinical oncology and in developing new drugs. 3D tumour models such as spheroids and ex vivo tumour explants are appropriate preclinic...

Significance: The primary method of COVID-19 detection is reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing. PCR test sensitivity may decrease as more variants of concern arise and reagents may become less specific to the virus. Aim: We aimed to develop a reagent-free way to detect COVID-19 in a real-world setting with minimal con...

Predicting patient responses to anticancer drugs is a major challenge both at the drug development stage and during cancer treatment. Tumor explant culture platforms (TECPs) preserve the native tissue architecture and are well-suited for drug response assays. However, tissue longevity in these models is relatively low. Several methodologies have be...

Multicellular tumour spheroids are an ideal in vitro tumour model to study clonal heterogeneity and drug resistance in cancer research because different cell types can be mixed at will. However, measuring the individual response of each cell population over time is challenging: current methods are either destructive, such as flow cytometry, or cann...

Tumor spheroids represent a realistic 3D in vitro cancer model because they provide a missing link between monolayer cell culture and live tissues. While microfluidic chips can easily form and assay thousands of spheroids simultaneously, few commercial instruments are available to analyze this massive amount of data. Available techniques to measure...

We present a microfluidic platform for automatic multi-size spheroid formation within constant volume hanging droplets (HDs) from a single inlet loading of a constant cell concentration. The platform introduces three technological improvements over the existing spheroid formation platforms: 1) Cell seeding control is achieved by enrichment of a cel...

There is a growing effort in the biomicrosystems community to develop a personalized treatment response assay for cancer patients using primary cells, patient-derived spheroids, or live tissues on-chip. Recently, our group has developed a technique to cut tumors in 350 µm diameter microtissues and keep them alive on-chip, enabling multiplexed in vi...

In recent communications from these laboratories, we observed that amine-rich thin organic layers are very efficient surfaces for the adhesion of mammalian cells. We prepare such deposits by plasma polymerization at low pressure, atmospheric pressure, or by vacuum--ultraviolet photo-polymerization. More recently, we have also investigated a commerc...

Introduction Low back pain, often due to intervertebral disk (IVD) degeneration, is an age-associated disorder that afflicts more than half of the population, above age 70. Discs are composite structures of the peripheral collagen-rich annulus fibrosus (AF) surrounding the proteoglycan-rich central nucleus pulposus (NP). Discs have significant extr...

Human U-937 monocytes are notoriously reluctant to adhere to normally cell-adhering surfaces, for example tissue-culture poly(styrene). In earlier work, these laboratories observed that organic thin films prepared by plasma- or ultraviolet-assisted polymerisation, so-called PVP:N, did facilitate the adhesion and proliferation of U-937 under the con...

In several recent communications from these laboratories, we have described observations that thin organic layers which are rich in primary amine (R-NH 2 ) groups are very efficient surfaces for the adhesion of mammalian cells, even for controlling the differentiation of stem cells. We prepare such deposits by plasma polymerization at low pressure...

There exists a large body of published literature, some going back several decades, that points to electrostatic (i.e. physical) adhesive forces between biomaterials surfaces and living cells, as opposed to chemical ones. Nevertheless, in view of the inherent complexity of biological phenomena, including cell biology, it is rarely simple to be able...

We have investigated amine-([–NH 2 ])-rich coatings in various cell-culture applications for several years, depositing films by plasma polymerisation from ethylene (C 2 H 4)-N 2 or C 2 H 4 –NH 3 mixtures, respectively. More recently, vacuum-ultraviolet-(VUV, < 200 nm) assisted photo-polymerisation has proven highly advantageous: Employing quasi-mon...

Human U-937 monocytes are notoriously reluctant to adhere to normally cell-adhering surfaces, for example tissue-culture poly(styrene), TCPS. In earlier work, these laboratories observed that organic thin films prepared by plasma- or ultraviolet- assisted polymerisation, so-called PVP:N, did facilitate the adhesion and proliferation of U-937 under...

Thin films, rich in primary amines (CNH 2 ), were deposited from nitrogen (N 2 ) or ammonia (NH 3 ) and ethylene (C 2 H 4 ) with different gas mixture ratios, R , using three different methods: atmospheric‐pressure‐ or low‐pressure plasma polymerisation (PP), and vacuum‐ultraviolet photo‐polymerisation. They are designated H‐plasma‐polymerised eth...

In several recent communications from these laboratories, we have described observations that thin organic layers which are rich in primary amine (C-NH2) groups are very efficient surfaces for the adhesion of mammalian cells, even for controlling the differentiation of stem cells. We prepare such deposits by plasma polymerisation at low pressure (t...