Poster Presentations
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A Bioreactor-System for Cultivation and Quality Control of 3D-printed Vascular Grafts
Christian Leibold, PhD Student, Leibniz University Hannover, Institute of Microelectronic Systems
A WHO study in 2012 revealed that the leading cause of death annually at 13.2 % of deaths worldwide was ischemic or coronary heart disease [1]. The objective is to bypass diseased vessels with bioartificial vascular grafts based on 3D-printed biocompatible scaffold structures (e.g. PLA) seeded with patients’ autologous cells. A newly developed bioreactor-system for cultivation and quality control of such vascular grafts is presented [2]. The bioreactor-system is able to provide physiological conditions for the vascular graft in vitro. Therefore, viscosity of blood is emulated by adding nontoxic Xanthan Gum to the nutrient and growth factor supply. A special designed pulse generator is used to generate physiological pulse curves to create shear stress promoting cellular growth and differentiation towards endothelial cells. The cultivation conditions are monitored by various sensor platforms integrated into the bioreactor-system [3]. Ultrasonic imaging is used to capture non-invasive 360° images of the growing vascular graft. These images can be combined to a 3D-visualization with a developed toolchain. The visualization allows verifying wall thickness and uniformity of the graft [4]. Additionally, physical load simulations provide detailed information about the volume flow and distribution of the shear stress along the inner vessel walls.
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