Collaborative Research: CPS: Medium: CyberOrganoids: Microrobotics-enabled differentiation control loops for cyber physical organoid formation

该项目旨在创建一个远程实时控制细胞过程的网络物理系统，并利用合成生物学和微型机器人的生物医学潜力来创建胰腺组织。目前仅在美国就有11.4万人在等待救命的器官移植，直接制造与患者相容的器官的能力，消除了对动物和临床研究的需要，可以为个性化医学带来革命性的变化。人体中的组织，如肝、肾和胰岛，由跨越2D和3D结构的复杂图案的细胞组成。然而，基于支架和微凝胶的组织工程方法以及3D生物打印通常无法创建这些复杂的3D结构。在这个项目中，研究小组将重点放在胰腺上，胰腺具有一种独特的解剖结构，由称为胰岛的圆形细胞团的规则排列组成。这项拟议的研究旨在克服在体外重建这些空间模式的障碍，方法是开发一种网络物理过程，通过这种过程，微型机器人群体将在3D模式下控制基因工程干细胞的分化，并驱动这些细胞形成所需的胰腺组织。这项工作的更广泛影响是重大的，因为它是合成新的或修复患病的人体器官的关键第一步，提供了计算机控制的微型机器人和遗传编程干细胞之间的互动行为。制造活组织是革命性的，因为它可以充当临床前试验和临床试验之间的桥梁，以确保更好的药物测试模型，并开发更个性化的精确医学。尤其是胰腺器官，制造符合药物标准的人体器官是一项特殊的挑战，目前的方法费力、耗时、昂贵且不可重复性，这导致工业界对该器官敬而远之。作为该项目研究部分的补充的教育和外联活动解决了在解决问题的研究职业中增加代表不足的少数群体(即妇女和未得到充分服务的人口)的必要性，如K-12工程。与均相细胞培养相比，人类诱导多能干细胞(HiPSC)衍生的3D有机物为开发新的治疗方法提供了更复杂和更全面的模型，而不是或补充动物试验。迫切需要开发可靠和可规模化的有机化合物生产技术。该项目旨在通过一种独特而新颖的计算机物理系统来克服这一巨大挑战，在该系统中，微型机器人以闭环的方式增强生物系统，以实现特定于细胞的功能和用户定义的定时--以指导细胞命运导致有机类化合物的形成。受工程系统必须与复杂的、活生生的个体交互的“人在环中”方法的启发，我们提出了一种“μ机器人在环中”方法，其中细胞之间的物理信号被微型机器人控制的输入取代，以提供时空精度和反馈控制来指导细胞行为。这一奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to create a cyber physical system for remotely controlling cellular processes in real time and leverage the biomedical potential of synthetic biology and microrobotics to create pancreatic tissue. With 114,000 people currently on the waitlist for a lifesaving organ transplant in the United States alone, the ability to directly produce patient-compatible organs, obviating the need for animal and clinical studies can revolutionize personalized medicine. Tissues in the human body such as liver, kidney, and pancreatic islets comprise cells arranged in complex patterns spanning both 2D and 3D structures. However, scaffold- and microgel-based tissue engineering approaches along with 3D bioprinting are often unable to create these complex 3D structures. In this project, the team focuses on the pancreas, which has a unique anatomical structure composed of the regular arrangement of circular cell clusters called islets. The proposed research aims at overcoming the hurdle of recreating these spatial patterns in vitro by developing a cyber physical process by which swarms of microrobots will be steered in 3D to regulate the differentiation of genetically engineered stem cells and drive these cells into forming desired pancreatic tissue. The broader impacts of this line of work are significant because it is a key first step in the synthesis of new, or the repair of ailing, human organs, providing for interactive behavior between computer controlled microrobots and genetically programmed stem cells. Manufacturing living tissue is revolutionary as it could act as a bridge between preclinical and clinical trials, to ensure better drug testing models and develop more personalized precision medicine. For pancreatic components, in particular, generating human organoids compliant with pharmaceutical standards is an exceptional challenge, and current methods are laborious, time-consuming, expensive, and irreproducible, which has caused industry to shy away from this organ. The education and outreach activities that complement the research component of this project address the need to increase underrepresented minorities (that is, women and under-served populations) in problem-solving research careers, like Engineering in K-12. Compared to homogeneous cell cultures, human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived 3D organoids offer more complex and comprehensive models for developing new therapies instead of, or to complement, animal testing. There is a critical need to develop techniques for the reliable and scalable production of organoids. This project aims to overcome this great challenge, via a unique and novel cyber-physical system in which microrobots augment the biological system, in a closed-loop approach, to enable cell-specific functionality and user-defined timing – to direct cellular fate leading to the formation of organoids. Inspired by “human-in-the-loop” approaches for engineering systems that must interact with complex, living individuals, we propose a “μrobot-in-the-loop” approach in which physical signaling among cells is substituted with microrobot-controlled inputs to afford spatiotemporal precision and feedback control in directing cell behavior.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.