3D tissue construction based on "Cell fibers"

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24686031
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Intelligent mechanics/Mechanical systems
• Research Institution: Keio University (2013-2014); The University of Tokyo (2012)
• Principal Investigator: ONOE Hiroaki 慶應義塾大学, 理工学部, 講師 (30548681)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: マイクロ流体 / 細胞 / 組織工学 / ハイドロゲル / マイクロファイバ / MEMS / ３次元組織

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aim of this project is to develop a fiber-shaped building unit, named “cell fiber,” for the construction of centimeter-scale 3D tissue constructs. I fabricated cell fibers that have a core of cell-suspended extracellular matrix (ECM) hydrogel and a shell of Ca-alginate hydrogel by using a double co-axial laminar flow microfluidic device. I found out that the choice of core ECM materials is critical to form cell fibers corresponding to various types of cells. Using cell fibers, I demonstrated a fiber-based centimeter-scale 3D tissue constructs woven by our developed micro weaving machine, and bundle-like neural 3D tissue structures. Those fabricated fiber-based 3D constructs maintained their viability and can be applied to in vivo implantation, which suggest that this fiber-based approach would be a powerful method for constructing large-scale spatially-ordered functional tissues.

Free Research Field

MEMS，マイクロ流体システム，バイオファブリケーション，