Bioactuator

Introduction

Our goal is to make a functional biohybrid actuator that can preform locomotion. To manage this, the goal is to use a complex skeleton with one or multiple simple one-way flexing skeleton muscle cells.

The cells used are the C2C12 myoblast cancer cell line from rats, these diffrentiate into skeletal muscles. The molds are made of polycarbonate??? and the skeleton used are made of silicon. Both the mold and the skeleton are 3D modelled in Fusion 360.

The C2C12 cell line are progenitor cells, these cells will grow as long as there are glucose and space in the growth flask. But once there are no longer space they will differentiate into skeletal muscle cells (myoblasts), the cells can also be induced to differentiate. Maintenance of cells and engineering of the mold as well as skeleton is therefore the main parts of this project.

To engineer the tissue we use a type 1 collagen and cell gel in the mold, and growing them here for 2 weeks while they differentiate into muscle tissue.

Team

We are currently four undergraduate students, With three of us studying bioscience and one studying physics

Progress

We have managed to fill the molds with the collagen type 1 cell gel.

Literature