Prototyping and Validation of Intervertebral Disc Bioreactors with Complex Loading Capacities

腰痛(LBP)是指腰部疲劳、不适或疼痛，这导致加拿大每年的医疗支出高达120亿美元。临床证据已将LBP与IVD退变联系在一起，由于天然IVD缺乏愈合能力，通常需要手术治疗。目前有多种可植入的生物材料正在开发中，用于IVD修复。然而，由于缺乏能够在实验室环境下再现体内条件的IVD生物反应器，这一发展长期以来一直是瓶颈。本项目的重点是用于IVD研究的新型生物反应器的设计、制造和验证。该装置集压缩、弯曲和扭转载荷于一体，完全兼容整个器官的体外培养。该项目将直接满足一家加拿大公司开发和验证用于IVD修复的水凝胶植入物的迫切需求。该设备可以对IVD植入物进行高通量的安全性和有效性评估，并减少对漫长而昂贵的动物实验的需要。该项目将满足该公司的需求，为其与PI的后续合作奠定基础，并最终帮助改善数百万患有IVD疾病的患者的医疗保健。

Low back pain (LBP) is tiredness, discomfort or pain in the low back, which leads to the medical expenditure of $12 billion annually in Canada. Clinical evidence has linked LBP with intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration that often requires surgical intervention due to the lack of healing capacity of native IVD. There are a variety of implantable biomaterials under development for IVD repair. However, the development has been long bottlenecked by the lack of IVD bioreactors capable of reproducing the in vivo conditions in a laboratory setting. This project is focused on design, fabrication, and validation of a novel bioreactor for IVD studies. Such a device is designed to combine the capacity of compression, bending and torsion loading simultaneously, while is fully compatible with whole organ culture ex vivo. This project would directly address a critical need of a Canadian company for the development and validation of hydrogel implants for IVD repair. The device can enable high-throughput safety and efficacy evaluation of IVD implants, and mitigate the need of lengthy and expensive animal experiments. This project will address the need of the company, set the foundation for its follow-up collaboration with the PI, and ultimately help improve the healthcare of millions of patients living with IVD diseases.