High-Throughput Screening of Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Differentiation on Nanomaterials

In the past few decades, nanomaterials and their application to controlling stem-cell behavior have gained increasing attention owing to their tremendous therapeutic potential. However, the high-throughput screening of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation on these surfaces is a critical barrier that must be overcome in order to scale-up and apply stem-cell technologies to the clinic. While a number of techniques, including real-time polymerase chain reaction, Western blotting, fluorescence microscopy, and immunohistochemistry, exist for the characterization of stem cells; these techniques are end-point assays that are often destructive, thereby precluding their clinical applicability. To this end, as stem-cell technology improves and the high-throughput screening of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation gains increasing attention, a growing number of techniques are being developed and/or adapted from other fields to address this deficit. In this chapter, we survey techniques that can be used for the high-throughput screening of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation on various surfaces. Emphasis is placed on techniques that can be used on nanomaterials, which include electrical, microfluidic, electrochemical, Raman, and microscopy-based screening methods. Each technique has its own individual advantages, and overall they allow for the high-throughput, real-time, and noninvasive screening of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation.