Investigating the effect of three dimensional topographical parameters on stem cell chondrogenic differentiation

Tissue engineering has played a more and more important role in current research field and medical application. It emphasizes on the use of stem cells or progenitor cells to produce tissues which could have a repair or replacement function in human body. A lot of previous researches have been to manipulate the in-vitro hMSCs differentiation into different type of cells, and the differentiated cells then further developed into tissues for human body implantation. With deep understanding of biomaterials, biomechanics and biological environment, significant progress has been made on fabricating tissues in laboratory. However, the major challenge that facing tissue engineering is the need of functional and biomechanical stability in laboratory-fabricated tissue. Most of the researches were done on typical two-dimensional cell culture environment, although some significant progresses have been made. As we known, in human body, cell extracellular matrix is defined by biochemical and structural properties, the cells grow in an environment where cells interact with the substrate, extracellular matrix and other cells, in other word the cells grow in a complicated three-dimensional environment within human body. Although some previous researches have been done to study the effect of mechanical stimuli, such as substrate strain, shear stress and rigidity on cell differentiation in a three-dimensional cell culture environment. However, no research has been done to study how the substrate parameters affect cell behavior. The objective of this project is to develop three-dimensional micro-patterned structure to investigate the effect of scaffold topographical parameters on cell chondrogenic differentiation. The scaffold is consist of numerous channels and the topographies are incorporated on the wall of the channels. Cells will grow inside the channels and each channel is separated so that cells will not cross the channels. Cells can migrate and sense the topographies of the wall in the channels. This three-dimensional scaffold design can tightly control the structural property of ECM and simultaneously integrating various biochemical process. By adjusting the culture system topographic parameter, the stem cell behavior, such as differentiation and proliferation will be affected.Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering