PFI-RP: Materials and surgical characterization for minimally invasive additive manufacturing of synthetic tissues inside the body

该创新-研究伙伴关系（PFI-RP）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是使组织工程在人体深处的微创外科手术中的未来使用成为可能。 目前，组织工程受到与植入这些结构（称为构建体）所需的侵入性手术相关的并发症的限制。 如果成功的话，这项技术有望使外科医生能够通过开发一种使用现有机器人手术器械打印组织工程结构的工具，将组织工程材料无缝集成到他们目前的机器人手术实践中。 该工具将与目前已经安装在美国数百家研究医院的机器人手术基础设施集成。 这项技术的商业潜力将是巨大的。该项目的商业影响得到了教育推广计划的加强，该计划将使学生和本科生研究人员参与工程设计问题，这些问题将与商业相关的限制和客户需求相结合。 拟议的项目将描述使用微创实践在手术模拟器内打印的组织工程结构的物理和生物学特性。 随着这种新型的手术工具和组织工程材料的输送方法的出现，需要完全表征专门为在体内打印而定制的材料。 研究计划的目标是描述材料的物理和生物特性，并根据客户发现研究的反馈和项目合作伙伴的输入重新设计技术平台。 预期结果是，打印的组织工程材料将具有接近天然组织模量的模量，降解速率符合组织工程标准，并且包埋在材料中的细胞将具有大于70%的活力。 再加上平台的重新设计，表征研究的结果为该技术的商业化提供了基础。 该商业化计划包括一系列指导性技术评估和阶段性里程碑，我们将接受合作伙伴对商业潜力和商业计划迭代的关键评估。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is to enable the future use of tissue engineering during minimally invasive surgical procedures deep within the human body. Currently, tissue engineering is limited by the complications associated with invasive surgeries required for implantation of these structures, called constructs. If successful, this technology is expected to enable surgeons to seamlessly integrate tissue engineering materials in their current robotic surgery practice by developing a tool that prints tissue engineering constructs using existing robotic surgery instrumentation. The tool will integrate with current robotic surgery infrastructure already installed at hundreds of research hospitals in the United States. The commercial potential for the technology will be substantial. The commercial impacts of the project are augmented by an educational outreach plan that will engage students and undergraduate researchers in engineering design problems that integrate business-relevant constraints and customer needs. The proposed project will characterize the physical and biological properties of tissue engineering constructs printed inside of a surgical simulator using minimally invasive practices. With this new type of surgical tool and delivery method for tissue engineering materials comes the need to fully characterize the materials that are specifically tailored for printing inside the body. The objective of the research plan is to characterize the physical and biological properties of the material and redesign the technology platform based on feedback from a customer discovery study and input from project partners. The expected results are that printed tissue engineering materials will have a modulus that approximates natural tissue modulus, the degradation rate meets tissue engineering standards, and that cells embedded in the material will have greater than 70% viability. Coupled with the platform redesign, the results from the characterization study provide a basis for commercialization of the technology. The commercialization plan consists of a set of guided technology assessments and staged milestones where we will receive critical evaluations by our partners on commercial potential and business plan iteration.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.