Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T13:06:38.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Capillary Formation In Microfabricated Polymer Scaffolds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2011

Jeffrey T. Borenstein ,
Kevin R. King ,
Hidetomi Terai  and
Joseph P. Vacanti
Jeffrey T. Borenstein
Affiliation:
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge MA; Hidetomi Terai4 and Joseph P. Vacanti4 Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Kevin R. King
Affiliation:
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge MA; Hidetomi Terai4 and Joseph P. Vacanti4 Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Hidetomi Terai
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Joseph P. Vacanti
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Get access

Abstract

One of the primary challenges for engineering thick, complex tissues such as vital organs is the requirement for a vascular supply for nutrient and metabolite transfer. Earlier work has shown that Solid Freeform Fabrication techniques such as Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP) are capable of producing biodegradable scaffolds for the subsequent formation of a wide range of tissues and organs. While this approach shows great promise as a method for constructing complex tissues and organs in vitro, the resolution of the process is currently limited to length scales larger than the narrowest capillaries in the microcirculation. In this work, microfabrication technology is demonstrated as an approach for organizing endothelial cells in vitro at the size scale of the microcirculation. Standard process techniques utilized to build MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) devices include photolithography, silicon and glass micromachining, and polymer replica molding. Photolithography is used to print a model network of blood vessels on silicon wafers; the network is designed to replicate the fluid dynamics of the vasculature of a particular tissue or organ. A reverse image of the channel network is formed either by Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) of silicon or through the use of a thick negative-polarity photoresist (SU-8). Polymeric scaffolds are formed by replica molding, using the silicon wafer as a master mold. Microfluidic chambers have been constructed from PDMS and other biocompatible polymers. Initial cell seeding experiments demonstrate that rat lung endothelial cells attach in a single layer to the walls of these structures without occluding them, providing early evidence that MEMS process technology can serve as a method for organizing capillary networks.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 711: Symposia FF/GG/HH – Advanced Biomaterials--Characterization, Tissue Engineering and Complexity , 2001 , GG1.3.1
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Langer, R. and Vacanti, J.P., “Tissue Engineering,” Science 260, 920 (1993).Google Scholar
2. Vacanti, J.P. and Langer, R., “Tissue engineering: the design and fabrication of living replacement devices for surgical reconstruction and transplantation,” Lancet 354 (suppl. 1), 32 (1999).Google Scholar
3. Richardson, T.P., Peters, M.C., Ennett, A.B. and Mooney, D.J., “Polymeric System for Dual Growth Factor Delivery,” Nature Biotech. 19, 1029 (2001).Google Scholar
4. Gabriel, K.J., “Microelectromechanical systems,” Proceedings of the IEEE 86, 1534 (1998).Google Scholar
5. Quake, S.R. and Scherer, A., “From micro- to nanofabrication with soft materials,” Science, 290, 1536 (2000).Google Scholar
6. Whitesides, G.M. and Stroock, A.D., “Flexible methods for microfluidics,” Physics Today 54, 42 (2001).Google Scholar
7. Jo, B.-H. and Beebe, D.J., “Fabrication of three-dimensional microfluidic systems by stacking molded PDMS layers,” SPIE Vol. 3877, 222 (1999).Google Scholar
8. Kaazempur-Mofrad, M.R., Kamm, R.D., Borenstein, J.T. and Vacanti, J.P., to be published.Google Scholar
9. Mu, B.M. and Cima, M.J., “Effects of solvent-particle interaction kinetics on microstructure formation during 3D printing,” Polymer Engineering and Science 39, 249 (1999).Google Scholar
10. Borenstein, J.T., Gerrish, N.D., Currie, M.T. and Fitzgerald, E.A., “Silicon Germanium Epitaxy: A New Material for MEMS,” in Materials Science of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Devices III, edited by Kahn, H., Boer, M. de, Judy, M. and Spearing, S.M., (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 657, Warrendale, PA, 2001), EE7.4.1.Google Scholar
11. Braber, E.T. den, Ruijter, J.E. de, Ginsel, L.A., Recum, A.F. von and Jansen, J.A., “Orientation of ECM Protein Deposition, Fibroblast Cytoskeleton, and Attachment Complex Components on Silicon Microgrooved Surfaces,” J. Biomed. Mater. Res. 40, 291 (1998).Google Scholar
12. Damji, A., Weston, L. and Brunette, D.M., “Directed Confrontations Between Fibroblasts and Epithelial Cells on Micromachined Grooved Substrata,” Exp. Cell. Res. 228, 114 (1996).Google Scholar
13. Bhatia, S.N., Yarmush, M.L. and Toner, M., “Controlling Cell Interactions by Micropatterning in Co-cultures,” J. Biomed. Mater. Res. 34, 189 (1997).Google Scholar
14. Chen, C.S., Mrksich, M., Huang, S., Whitesides, G.M. and Ingber, D.E., “Geometric control of cell life and death,” Science 276, 1425 (1997).Google Scholar
15. Ayon, A.A., Nagle, S., Frechette, L., Epstein, A. and Schmidt, M.A., “Tailoring etch directionality in a deep reactive ion etching tool,” J. Vac. Sci. Tech. B 18, 1412 (2000).Google Scholar
16. Albaugh, K.B. and Rasmussen, D.H., “Rate processes during anodic bonding,” Journal of the American Ceramic Society 75, 2644, (1992).Google Scholar
17. Zhang, J., Tan, K.L., Hong, G.D., Yuang, L.J. and Gong, Q.H., “Polymerization optimization of SU-8 photoresist and its applications in microfluidic systems and MEMS,” J. Micromech. Microeng. 11, 20 (2001).Google Scholar
18. Takayama, S., Ostuni, E., Oian, X., McDonald, J.C., Jiang, X., Wu, M.-H., Leduc, P., Ingber, D.E. and Whitesides, G.M., “Patterning the topographical environment for mammalian cell culture using laminar flows in capillaries,” 1st Annual International IEEE-EMBS Special Topic Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology. Proceedings, Eds: Dittmar, A., Beebe, D., IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2000), p. 322.Google Scholar
19. Kaihara, S., Borenstein, J.T., Koka, R., Lalan, S., Ochoa, E.R., Ravens, M., Pien, H., Cunningham, B. and Vacanti, J.P., “Silicon micromachining to tissue engineer branched vascular channels for liver fabrication,” Tissue Engineering 6, 105 (2000).Google Scholar