Prototyping and Validation of Intervertebral Disc Bioreactors with Complex Loading Capacities

腰痛（LBP）是腰背部的疲劳、不适或疼痛，每年在加拿大导致120亿美元的医疗支出。临床证据表明腰痛与椎间盘（IVD）退变有关，由于先天IVD缺乏愈合能力，通常需要手术干预。有多种植入式生物材料正在开发用于IVD修复。然而，由于缺乏能够在实验室环境中再现体内条件的IVD生物反应器，这一发展长期受到瓶颈。本项目专注于设计、制造和验证一种用于IVD研究的新型生物反应器。该装置能同时结合压缩、弯曲和扭转载荷的能力，并与全器官离体培养完全兼容。该项目将直接解决加拿大公司开发和验证用于IVD修复的水凝胶植入物的关键需求。该设备可以实现IVD植入物的高通量安全性和有效性评估，并减轻了漫长而昂贵的动物实验的需要。该项目将满足公司的需求，为其与PI的后续合作奠定基础，并最终帮助改善数百万IVD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.