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However, usable human tendon cells that have to flex and bend have proven more difficult to grow. Over the past two decades, scientists have repeatedly stretched engineered tendon cells and tissues in one direction, stimulating them to grow and mature. However, this approach has so far failed to produce fully functional tissue grafts that can be used clinically in the human body.
A new study published Nature Communications Engineering today he shows how humanoid robots can be used to make engineered tendon tissue that looks more like the real thing.
“The clinical need is clear,” says Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy of the University of Oxford, who led the team. “If we can create good enough quality in vitro grafts for use in clinics, it will really help improve outcomes in these patients. Any improvement would be welcome.”
The first step involved redesigning the test chamber housing the cells, known as the bioreactor, to attach it to the shoulder of a humanoid robot that could bend, push, pull, and bend in the same way as musculoskeletal tissues.
While conventional bioreactors look like rigid boxes, the team created a flexible one in which human fibroblast cells (long cells found in connective tissues) are grown on a soft plastic scaffold suspended between two rigid blocks. They attached this chamber to his robotic shoulder, which spent half an hour a day for 14 days mimicking the rising and turning movements of a human.
Later, the cells in the bioreactor were found to proliferate more rapidly and express genes differently than unstretched samples – although the researchers don’t yet know how this translates into the quality of the graft. The team plans to investigate how cells grown in their new bioreactors compare to those grown in traditional stretch bioreactors.
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