Development of an open hardware bioreactor for optimized cardiac cell culture integrating programmable mechanical and electrical stimulations

摘要

A new open-hardware bioreactor capable of applying electrical field stimulation in conjunction with static or cyclic stretch is presented. Stretch is applied to cells by a specially designed elastomeric membrane with a central seeding region. The main interest of our approach is the fine control of the characteristics of stimulations in regard to timing and amplitude in a simple design based on affordable, easy to find components and 3D printable parts. Our approach opens the way to more complex protocols for electrical and/or mechanical stimulations, which are known important regulators of cardiac phenotypes.