Research on micromachine technology for transplantation surgery based on tissue engineering

近年来，基于组织工程学的移植手术有望有效治愈不治之症或先天衰竭。眼睛移植手术是最具挑战性的医学技术之一，因为眼睛的手术范围很小，而且非常脆弱。因此，有望为眼部移植手术开发最小倒置医学技术。我们对视网膜色素上皮(RPE)片移植感兴趣，开发了一种基于气动球囊致动器(PBA)的移植手术工具。为了对气动球囊致动器(PBAS)进行优化设计，我们进行了有限元模拟，并验证了其在计算和表征以聚二甲基硅氧烷(PDMS)为基础的材料制成的PBA弯曲运动方面的适用性。通过将线弹性区域的计算结果与实际制作的器件的运动进行比较，结果表明，在本模拟中可以成功地捕捉到典型的PBA运动。通过合作进行的连续的体外和体内实验将验证改进后的工具的实际可用性。

Recently, transplantation surgery based on tissue engineering is strongly expected to cure inextirpable disease or congenital failure effectively. Transplantation surgery in an eye is one of the most challenging medical technologies because an eye has only tiny surgical field and is very fragile. Therefore, it is expected to develop the minimally inversion medical technology for transplantation surgery in an eye. We have interested in the Retinal Pigment Epithelium(RPE) sheet transplantation and developed a transplantation surgical tool using pneumatic balloon actuator(PBA).Toward design optimization of pneumatic balloon actuators(PBAs), we have performed FEM simulation and demonstrated its applicability to compute and characterize the bending motion of PBAs fabricated from PDMS(polydimethylsiloxane)-based materials. It is shown that typical PBA motions could be successfully captured in the present simulation through the comparison of the computational results obtained in the linearly-elastic region with the actual motions of fabricated devices. Successive ex-vivo and in-vivo experiments through collaborations will verify the practical usability of the improved tool.