Microrobotically fabricated biological scaffolds for tissue engineering

My first paper credit! This was a bio-engineering project. We explored a new fabrication method for building submicron-scale fibrous constructs out of the biodegradable polymer polylactic acid (PLA). 

Designing fibrous, biodegradable, patterned substrates is relevant for tissue engineering: they provide a mechanical substrate to guide the structural development of the tissue. We cultured the mouse myoblast (muscle building) C2C12 cell line (which has been immortalized since 1977) on the constructs. The cells adhered to the fibers and replicated happily.

You can download the conference paper here.

We took some beautiful confocal and electron microscopy images:

The C2C12 cells were modified so that the structural protein α-tubulin is attached to a green fluorescent protein. This protein is a component of the cytoskeletal microtubules. These structural elements are especially prominent in the mitotic spindle during cytokinesis, just before the cells divide (below).

Below is a false-color confocal image of the cells proliferating on the scaffold. The PLA fibers (blue) were imaged in brightfield. The α-tubulin-GFP fluorescence is in green, with fine structures highlighted in yellow.

Here are a few more fluorescence and electron microscopy images (click on thumbnail to view full size):

If you would like to reproduce or refer to these images, you can cite the paper as:

Nain, A.S., Chung, F., Rule, M., Jadlowiec, J.A., Campbell, P.G., Amon, C. and Sitti, M., 2007, April. Microrobotically fabricated biological scaffolds for tissue engineering. In Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (pp. 1918-1923). IEEE.