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Capillary Formation In Microfabricated Polymer Scaffolds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2011

Jeffrey T. Borenstein,
Kevin R. King,
Hidetomi Terai and
Joseph P. Vacanti
Jeffrey T. Borenstein
Affiliation:
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge MA; Hidetomi Terai4 and Joseph P. Vacanti4Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Kevin R. King
Affiliation:
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge MA; Hidetomi Terai4 and Joseph P. Vacanti4Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Hidetomi Terai
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MACenter for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
Joseph P. Vacanti
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MACenter for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Boston, MA
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Abstract

One of the primary challenges for engineering thick, complex tissues such as vital organs is the requirement for a vascular supply for nutrient and metabolite transfer. Earlier work has shown that Solid Freeform Fabrication techniques such as Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP) are capable of producing biodegradable scaffolds for the subsequent formation of a wide range of tissues and organs. While this approach shows great promise as a method for constructing complex tissues and organs in vitro, the resolution of the process is currently limited to length scales larger than the narrowest capillaries in the microcirculation. In this work, microfabrication technology is demonstrated as an approach for organizing endothelial cells in vitro at the size scale of the microcirculation. Standard process techniques utilized to build MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) devices include photolithography, silicon and glass micromachining, and polymer replica molding. Photolithography is used to print a model network of blood vessels on silicon wafers; the network is designed to replicate the fluid dynamics of the vasculature of a particular tissue or organ. A reverse image of the channel network is formed either by Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) of silicon or through the use of a thick negative-polarity photoresist (SU-8). Polymeric scaffolds are formed by replica molding, using the silicon wafer as a master mold. Microfluidic chambers have been constructed from PDMS and other biocompatible polymers. Initial cell seeding experiments demonstrate that rat lung endothelial cells attach in a single layer to the walls of these structures without occluding them, providing early evidence that MEMS process technology can serve as a method for organizing capillary networks.

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