AUTOMATING THE PROCESS OF FABRICATING UNIFORM-SIZED CELL SPHEROIDS FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL BIOPRINTING

Author

Ganesh Sosale, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/YBP3-9A82

Defense Date

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Biomedical Engineering

First Advisor

Ning Zhang

Abstract

Although researchers have been able to print small, simple, and avascular tissues, they have been unsuccessful in creating large, complex and vascularized organs. Printing large and complex three-dimensional tissues or organs involves utilizing a large quantity of cellular spheroids and layer-by-layer addition of spheroids. In this study, an in-house cell spheroid fabrication system was developed to produce cell spheroids with human liver cells (hepG2), human endothelial cells (hEC), human neural stem cells (hNSC), and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). It offers the ability of fabricating uniform-sized spheroids repeatedly, which is essential when large and complex structures need to be produced. In order to test the spheroids’ ability to fuse, hEC spheroids were placed in line with one another and revealed successful fusion. Overall, the results indicate the in- house developed cell spheroid fabrication system can play a major role in bioprinting by providing researchers with uniform-sized spheroids in large quantities, consistently.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

7-7-2015