A method to fabricate mesoscopic freestanding polydimethylsiloxane membranes used to probe the rheology of an epithelial sheet.
Details are presented for the formulation, fabrication, and mechanical characterization of mesoscopic freestanding polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer membranes, 10.0 microm thick and 5.0 mm in diameter, used to probe the rheology of a living epithelial sheet. In what is described as a composite diaphragm inflation (CDI) experiment, freestanding PDMS membranes are utilized as substrates for the culture of a sheet of epithelial cells.