Next Generation Biomaterials Discovery Using Combinatorial Screening Technology

微环境中的生物物理参数，如硬度和地形，在健康和疾病期间决定体内细胞增殖和分化方面起着重要作用。这方面的一个例子是上皮向间充质转化（EMT），这是胚胎发育期间的一个重要过程，在伤口愈合和组织再生期间重现，但在病理环境如癌症转移中也很重要。更好地理解EMT机制和微环境在这一过程中的影响具有重要价值。利用这些机制，通过在体外工程微环境，将提供一个强大的工具，创造优化的细胞基质，可用于增强细胞生物加工，生物工程组织结构和促进组织再生体内。然而，确定实现目标响应的物理化学性质目前具有挑战性。该项目将使用基于部分析因设计的方法来创建基于生物材料的细胞基质的组合阵列，这些细胞基质将用于筛选上皮细胞向间充质细胞的重编程。

Biophysical parameters in the microenvironment, such as stiffness and topography, play a prominent role in determining cell proliferation and differentiation in vivo during health anddisease. An example of this is epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), an essential process during embryonic development and recapitulated during wound healing and tissue regeneration, but also significant in pathological settings such as cancer metastasis. A better understanding of EMT mechanisms and the influence of the microenvironment in this process hold significant value. Harnessing these mechanisms, through engineering the microenvironment in vitro, would provide a powerful tool for creating optimised cellsubstrates that could be utilised for enhancing cell bioprocessing, bioengineering tissue constructs and promoting tissue regeneration in vivo. However, identifying which physicochemical properties that achieve the target response is currently challenging. This project will use a fractional factorial design based approach to create combinatorial arrays of biomaterial-based cell substrates that will be used to screen reprogramming of epithelial cells into mesenchymal cells.