Aligned Carbon Nanotube–Based Flexible Gel Substrates for Engineering Biohybrid Tissue Actuators |
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| Authors: | Su Ryon Shin Courtney Shin Adnan Memic Samaneh Shadmehr Mario Miscuglio Hyun Young Jung Sung Mi Jung Hojae Bae Ali Khademhosseini Xiaowu Tang Mehmet R Dokmeci |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;2. Harvard‐MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA;3. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA;4. Center of Nanotechnology, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;5. Department of Chemistry and Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada;6. Department of Energy Engineering, Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology, Jinju, Gyeongnam, Republic of Korea;7. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA;8. College of Animal Bioscience and Technology, Department of Bioindustrial Technologies, Konkuk University, Kwangjin‐gu, Seoul, Korea;9. Department of Physics, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;10. Department of Maxillofacial Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea |
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| Abstract: | Muscle‐based biohybrid actuators have generated significant interest as the future of biorobotics but so far they move without having much control over their actuation behavior. Integration of microelectrodes into the backbone of these systems may enable guidance during their motion and allow precise control over these actuators with specific activation patterns. Here, this challenge is addressed by developing aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) forest microelectrode arrays and incorporating them into scaffolds for cell stimulation. Aligned CNTs are successfully embedded into flexible and biocompatible hydrogels exhibiting excellent anisotropic electrical conductivity. Bioactuators are then engineered by culturing cardiomyocytes on the CNT microelectrode‐integrated hydrogel constructs. The resulting cardiac tissue shows homogeneous cell organization with improved cell‐to‐cell coupling and maturation, which is directly related to the contractile force of muscle tissue. This centimeter‐scale bioactuator has excellent mechanical integrity, embedded microelectrodes, and is capable of spontaneous actuation behavior. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a biohybrid machine can be controlled by an external electrical field provided by the integrated CNT microelectrode arrays. In addition, due to the anisotropic electrical conductivity of the electrodes provided by aligned CNTs, significantly different excitation thresholds are observed in different configurations such as the ones with electrical fields applied in directions parallel versus perpendicular to the CNT alignment. |
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| Keywords: | bioactuators carbon nanotubes cardiac tissue engineering hybrid hydrogels microelectrode arrays |
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