TY - JOUR
T1 - The e-incubator
T2 - A magnetic resonance imaging-compatible mini incubator
AU - Othman, Shadi F.
AU - Wartella, Karin
AU - Khalilzad Sharghi, Vahid
AU - Xu, Huihui
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - The tissue engineering community has been vocal regarding the need for noninvasive instruments to assess the development of tissue-engineered constructs. Medical imaging has helped fulfill this role. However, specimens allocated to a test tube for imaging cannot be tested for a prolonged period or returned to the incubator. Therefore, samples are essentially wasted due to potential contamination and transfer in a less than optimal growth environment. In turn, we present a standalone, miniature, magnetic resonance imaging-compatible incubator, termed the e-incubator. This incubator uses a microcontroller unit to automatically sense and regulate physiological conditions for tissue culture, thus allowing for concurrent tissue culture and evaluation. The e-incubator also offers an innovative scheme to study underlying mechanisms related to the structural and functional evolution of tissues. Importantly, it offers a key step toward enabling real-time testing of engineered tissues before human transplantation. For validation purposes, we cultured tissue-engineered bone constructs for 4 weeks to test the e-incubator. Importantly, this technology allows for visualizing the evolution of temporal and spatial morphogenesis. In turn, the e-incubator can filter deficient constructs, thereby increasing the success rate of implantation of tissue-engineered constructs, especially as construct design grows in levels of complexity to match the geometry and function of patients' unique needs.
AB - The tissue engineering community has been vocal regarding the need for noninvasive instruments to assess the development of tissue-engineered constructs. Medical imaging has helped fulfill this role. However, specimens allocated to a test tube for imaging cannot be tested for a prolonged period or returned to the incubator. Therefore, samples are essentially wasted due to potential contamination and transfer in a less than optimal growth environment. In turn, we present a standalone, miniature, magnetic resonance imaging-compatible incubator, termed the e-incubator. This incubator uses a microcontroller unit to automatically sense and regulate physiological conditions for tissue culture, thus allowing for concurrent tissue culture and evaluation. The e-incubator also offers an innovative scheme to study underlying mechanisms related to the structural and functional evolution of tissues. Importantly, it offers a key step toward enabling real-time testing of engineered tissues before human transplantation. For validation purposes, we cultured tissue-engineered bone constructs for 4 weeks to test the e-incubator. Importantly, this technology allows for visualizing the evolution of temporal and spatial morphogenesis. In turn, the e-incubator can filter deficient constructs, thereby increasing the success rate of implantation of tissue-engineered constructs, especially as construct design grows in levels of complexity to match the geometry and function of patients' unique needs.
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U2 - 10.1089/ten.tec.2014.0273
DO - 10.1089/ten.tec.2014.0273
M3 - Article
C2 - 25190214
AN - SCOPUS:84926504784
SN - 1937-3384
VL - 21
SP - 347
EP - 355
JO - Tissue Engineering - Part C: Methods
JF - Tissue Engineering - Part C: Methods
IS - 4
ER -