Institute of <biophysics and Biomedical Engineering

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

How to correctly estimate the electric field in capacitively coupled systems for tissue engineering: a comparative study

Publication . Meneses, João; Fernandes, Sofia; Alves, Nuno; Pascoal-Faria, Paula; Miranda, Pedro Cavaleiro

Capacitively Coupled (CCoupled) electric fields are used to stimulate cell cultures in Tissue Engineering. Knowing the electric field (E-Field) magnitude in the culture medium is fundamental to establish a relationship between stimulus strength and cellular effects. We analysed eight CCoupled studies and sought to corroborate the reported estimates of the E-Field in the culture medium. First, we reviewed the basic physics underlying CCoupled stimulation and delineated three approaches to estimate the E-field. Using these approaches, we found that the reported values were overestimated in five studies, four of which were based on incorrect assumptions. In all studies, insufficient information was provided to reproduce the setup exactly. Creating electrical models of the experimental setup should improve the accuracy of the E-field estimates and enhance reproducibility. For this purpose, we developed a free open-source tool, the E-field Calculator for CCoupled systems, which is available for download from an internet hosting platform.

2022Journal article

Open access

A multimodal stimulation cell culture bioreactor for tissue engineering: A numerical modelling approach

Publication . Meneses, João; Silva, João C.; Fernandes, Sofia R.; Datta, Abhishek; Ferreira, Frederico Castelo; Moura, Carla; Amado, Sandra; Alves, Nuno; Pascoal-Faria, Paula

The use of digital twins in tissue engineering (TE) applications is of paramount importance to reduce the number of in vitro and in vivo tests. To pursue this aim, a novel multimodal bioreactor is developed, combining 3D design with numerical stimulation. This approach will facilitate the reproducibility between studies and the platforms optimisation (physical and digital) to enhance TE. The new bioreactor was specifically designed to be additive manufactured, which could not be reproduced with conventional techniques. Specifically, the design suggested allows the application of dual stimulation (electrical and mechanical) of a scaffold cell culture. For the selection of the most appropriate material for bioreactor manufacturing several materials were assessed for their cytotoxicity. Numerical modelling methods were then applied to the new bioreactor using one of the most appropriate material (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol-modified (PETG)) to find the optimal stimulation input parameters for bone TE based on two reported in vitro studies.

2020Journal article

Open access