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A. Ovsianikov et al.:
"Multiphoton processing technologies for engineering of 3D cell-culture matrices";
Keynote Lecture: International Joint Symposium on Advanced Medical and Human Assist Systems and on Technology in Arthroplasty for Floor-Sitting Life Style, Japan (invited); 2013-03-08; in: "International Joint Symposium on AMHS and on TAFS", (2013), 137.

The subject of this presentation is a group of technologies allowing the realization of customized cell-culture matrices at an unprecedented level of accuracy. These methods utilize photochemistry induced by multiphoton absorption and are carried out using essentially identical equipment. The development of multiphoton processing technologies showed considerable advances within just a little more than a decade. Their recent applications in cell biology and tissue engineering indicate the emergence of a new technology platform in response to an urgent need for customized cell microenvironments mimicking the complexity of the natural extra-cellular matrix. Fabrication of 2D microstructured substrates, complex 3D scaffolds, containing actively induced topographies, and immobilization of biomolecules in a spatially defined manner was demonstrated with these techniques. The reviewed reports demonstrate that the multiphoton processing methods can be used to study a wide variety of relevant biological questions. Fabrication of complex 3D constructs in accordance to a computer-aided design model offers a true engineering dimension to designing of cell-culture matrices. Their parameters can be adapted to study specific biological and tissue processes. The possibility of precisely adjusting the biomechanical and biochemical properties of produced matrix might finally allow separation of the influence of these two parameters on cell behavior in 3D. The further development of the multiphoton processing techniques will facilitate the realization of elegant biological in vitro experiments, helping to elucidate biomimetic aspects of cell interaction with the surrounding environment. In perspective, multiphoton processing technologies are sufficiently versatile to produce standard biomimetic 3D matrices for different tissue types. We expect them to contribute to a paradigm transition from accepting the cell-culture matrix as a standard based on its availability, to constructing and selection of a standard matrix based on its performances in particular cell culture.