Enabling actuation and sensing in organs-on-chip using electroactive polymers

P.A. Motreuil-Ragot, A. Hunt, Dhanesh Kasi, B. Brajon, Arn M.J.M. van den Maagdenberg, Valeria Orlova, M. Mastrangeli, P.M. Sarro

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
54 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Organ-on-chip (OoC) devices are in rising demand for high-throughput and low-cost development and toxico-logical screening of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, as they accurately mimic in vitro physiological conditions as in the human body. In particular, OoCs are urgently needed for screening cardiovascular drug toxicity. Physiological relevance of cardiovascular cell cultures requires moving substrates. To date cell culture substrates have been commonly actuated by pneumatic systems, which are bulky, expensive and non-user-friendly, and may thus limit the adoption of OoCs by researchers and industry. In this paper we propose the first actuating and sensing smart material-based OoC device and demonstrate its functionality by culturing human vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMC). Our device utilizes a single ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC)-based transducer to provide both actuation and sensing. The soft IPMC substrate allows to intermittently apply cyclic loading to tissues and to sense their spontaneous contractions. We integrated the transducer within a compact, easy-to-operate, economically affordable and scalable OoC prototype, which achieves an actuation range of 0.2 mm and 0.72 V/mm sensing resolution. The 0.1 % strain induced by actuation on cells accurately corresponds to in vitro strains for vSMCs. We successfully grew vSMCs on the IPMC substrate, and actuated them for 150 min at 1 Hz. Fluorescent staining showed no evidence of adverse effects. These results are a major step towards versatile OoCs for a wide variety of biological modelling of human tissues.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2020)
Pages530-535
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-7281-6570-7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jun 2020
Event3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, RoboSoft 2020 - New Haven, United States
Duration: 15 May 202015 Jul 2020
Conference number: 3

Conference

Conference3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, RoboSoft 2020
Abbreviated titleRoboSoft 2020
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew Haven
Period15/05/2015/07/20
OtherVirtual/online event due to COVID-19

Bibliographical note

Virtual/online event due to COVID-19
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

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