RABBITCELLPSU · THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPLANTABLE CELLULAR POWER SUPPLY BASED ON RABBIT CARDIAC CELLS

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPLANTABLE CELLULAR POWER SUPPLY BASED ON RABBIT CARDIAC CELLS.

The objective of this Marie Curie project is to train a young research in the cross-disciplinary area of cell based device engineering with a long term perspective of creation of implantable cellular power supply. Thus, the training and research activities were developed alone the following directions, -Fabrication of microfluidic devices with integrated electrodes and electric characterization under microflow conditions -Culture of cardiomyocytes and electric characterization of cardiac tissue constructs -Study of piezoelectric responses of modeling micro and nano-devices Firstly, a new configuration of microfluidic device with integrated microelectrodes was studied, showing high processing ability of electric signals with a microelectrode array and a customized interface. Secondly, a large among of data were collected which not only allow quantitative measurements of the electric activities of reactants or cells in a confined system but also real time monitoring of flow dynamics. In parallel, a fluidic cell dedicated to microscopic imaging of neurons and cardiomyocytes under electric stimulation was designed and fabricated (in collaboration with Biology department of ENS). Cardiomyocytes are now routinely studied in the group of microfluidics in ENS. The first attempt was made with primary cardiac cells and patterned surfaces, which showed significant influences of topographic features on the formation homogeneity and beating regularity of cardiac cell clusters. Furthermore, electrospun nanofibers were obtained with clinically proved collagen, showing an excellent bio-compatibility for both in-vitro and in-vivo investigations. To facilitate the investigation, induced pluripotent stem cells have also been introduced which can now be easily differentiated into cardiomyocytes. With the help of designed microdevices or scaffolds, the cardiomyocytes can form useful tissue constructs for drug screening, implants and studies of such as micro-power devices. Furthermore, electric characterization of the fabricated tissue constructs has been performed using multi-electrode array, which showed critical dependences of the quality of the constructs on the organization of the nanofibers. To examine the feasibility of beating based power generation, high quality ZnO nanowires were fabricated, showing clearly piezoelectric responses of the system. Alternatively, electrospun nanofibers were produced using PVDF, a well-known biocompatible polymer with very large piezoelectric coefficient. As conclusion, the main technique components related to this project have been studied, which support and encourage further studies of cardiomyocytes based power devices.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union