EcoCyto - Fluid shear stress calculator

About EcoCyto - Fluid shear stress calculator Android App

Fluid shear stress (FSS) is known to modulate cell biology in multiple cell lineages.
Research groups investigating the role of FSS have previously relied on parallel plate flow chambers or cone and plate viscometers to instigate physiologically relevant degrees of FSS, however these approaches are expensive and low throughput.
In 2010, a fluid mechanics research group defined a mathematical model which describes the FSS instigated on a cultured cell monolayer when a culture dish of known dimensions, immersed in a known volume of fluid of known viscosity is rocked at a known angle and frequency.

This mobile application rearranges and optimises that model in a more user friendly format; i.e the user may select the degree of fluid shear stress they wish to simulate using the equipment they have in their laboratory. The app calculates the volume of fluid required to meet that target FSS, which varies depending on all other variables.
EcoCyto's fluid shear stress calcualator was validated agasint the original publications example data, and has been used to identify multiple effects of fluid shear stress (1 dyne/cm2) in a kidney cell line.

Requirements:
1. A cell rocker
2. Standard cylindrical tissue culture plates or dishes of any size.
3. An adherent cell line

References

X. Zhou, D. Liu, L. You, and L. Wang, “Quantifying fluid shear stress in a rocking culture dish.,” J. Biomech., vol. 43, no. 8, pp. 1598–602, May 2010.