Custom design motion control system drives biomedical innovation

摘要

Motion control is playing an enabling role for biomedical equipment, as MICA BioSystems adopts a new approach to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Formed in 2010 by Keele University Professors Jon Dobson and Alicia J El Haj, bioengineering innovator MICA BioSystems has developed a 'mechanical conditioning bioreactor' to support a patented technology invented at Keele's Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine (ISTM). The benchtop laboratory machine aims to control cell behaviour by applying time varying magnetic forces to magnetic nanoparticles targeted to cell membrane receptors. The particles are oscillated by a motion controlled magnet array to vary the magnetic force and exposure factors applied. The technique is of wide interest for biomedical research and has very promising opportunities for the emerging technology fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine as well as providing an important tool for drug screening.