Description
- Abstract:
- While many strides have been made in the field of tissue engineering since its inception, the need for a physiologically relevant biological substitute remains unmet. One facet of tissue engineering that still needs to be developed is manufacturing schemes for human tissue products. Currently, a manufacturing gap exists that makes clinical translation of products challenging. Manufacturing is an essential component of any commercial product since it produces products faster, more reproducibly, and more uniformly of a higher quality than if manually constructed. Automation is a crucial aspect of manufacturing that greatly assists in producing products of a higher quality at a quicker speed while reducing human error. Automated biofabrication methods have only recently begun to be investigated, however, they are a critical step in the advancement of human tissue products and their eventual clinical translation. Specifically, there is a need for a simple self-aligning automated technique using standard components readily available and easily translatable into existing automated schemes. The work presented herein develops a novel method for the biofabrication of bio-tubes using automated additive manufacturing techniques. The thesis is presented in three sections which aim to (1) develop a new microtissue manipulation platform for the fabrication of bio-tubes, (2) automate the new method and develop a real-time quality control step using vision recognition, and (3) discuss the theory behind fabricating a vascular unit containing a blood vessel-like tube that branches into a perfusable capillary tissue bed, an application of the developed automated method. Completion of these aims is a step toward creating automated manufacturing schemes for human tissue products and their eventual translation into clinical settings.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2020
Access Conditions
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- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- Collection is open for research.
Citation
Manning, Kali L.,
"Towards Automated Additive Manufacturing of Bio-Tubes"
(2020).
Biomedical Engineering Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:1129412/
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Biomedical Engineering Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Biomedical Engineering department....