Defense Date

3-22-2023

Graduation Date

Summer 8-4-2023

Availability

One-year Embargo

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MS

Department

Biomedical Engineering

School

Rangos School of Health Sciences

Committee Chair

Bin Yang

Committee Member

Kimberly Williams

Committee Member

John A. Viator

Committee Member

Ipsita Banerjee

Keywords

air-jetting, bioprinting, encapsulation, droplets, alginate, 3D printing, micro-droplets, organoids

Abstract

Transplantation of organoids has been demonstrated to be a promising cure to many diseases including Type-1 diabetes. However, achieving consistent and robust derivations of mature organoids from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) is challenging. Cellular mechano-transduction, where mechanical stimuli is sensed and converted to biochemical signaling, has been proposed to overcome this challenge. This pathway relies on encapsulating hPSCs in a small volume of a biomaterial such as alginate, which has been widely used as cell encapsulation materials due to its biocompatibility and selective permeability. In this project, we focused on developing an air-jetting based technique to generate small and consistent spherical alginate droplets in the range of 300 to 500 µm. This can later be used for cell encapsulation and 3D-cell culturing via activation of the mechano-transduction pathway. We developed a custom alginate droplet generation system by integrating a syringe pump system with a 3D-printed air-jetting adapter. We conducted comprehensive studies to investigate and validate the design and configuration of this system, as well as parameters for droplet generation. Throughout the study, we optimized and developed a working protocol that ensures repeatable and consistent generation of alginate droplet in the targeted size range. The newly developed technique for generating alginate droplets will be incorporated into existing research of biomanufacturing organoids and provide insights for scale-up methods of production.

Language

English

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