Novel Bioreactor Design: Development of a Bioartifical Liver for Multiplexing with Serial Organ Systems for Pharmaceutical Testing
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Hans, Vaibhav
- Affiliation: School of Medicine, UNC/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
- Abstract
- Even in this age of medicine, acute liver disease is still primarily treated in the same way as a decade ago; through the use of a liver transplant. However, due to the increase in liver disease and the persistent shortage of donor organs, the development of a bioartificial liver (BAL) has been the center of many research projects around the world. Even so, in the last two decades, there has only been little advancement on the development of a suitable human liver representative bioreactor. Although tissue-engineering methods have improved, a bioreactor still needs to be developed that can emulate the liver in order to properly develop and test hepatocytes to be used in a bioartificial liver. This BAL model must be able to first of all maintain cell viability, as well as mimic gas exchange and nutrient delivery. However, the development of a suitable BAL is prolonged due to the financial aspect of pharmacology testing. The cost of testing a single pharmaceutical compound on hepatocytes in vivo can exceed millions of dollars in order to satisfy government regulations. The fact is that there are many new compounds that are synthesized each year that could fight liver disease, but the cost of in vivo testing is far too high [8]. By creating a BAL to model the in vivo pathways and mechanisms in the liver, an understanding of integration and the effects of consequent pharmaceutical compounds can be expedited and testing can be made more affordable.
- Date of publication
- spring 2014
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: The Hamner Institute for Health Sciences
- Funding: Kimball King Undergraduate Research Fund
- Advisor
- Macdonald, Jeffrey
- Degree
- Bachelor of Science
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 19
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