Every day in the United States, more than 15 people die waiting for the lifesaving gift of an organ transplant. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) reports that more than 100,000 adults and children are on the national organ transplant list, with nine people added to the number every day and only 37,584 transplants performed in 2020.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals have seen a tremendous decline in the number of organ donations and transplants, due to a lack of donors and other restraints. To address this ongoing issue, tissue scaffold research is paving the way to develop bio-artificial organs.

At the center of this groundbreaking research is Brinkman Family Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Sriharsha Srinivas Sundarram, PhD, and his team of engineering students. They are building three-dimensional tissue scaffolds in a lab, allowing living cells to grow and assist in the development of bio-artificial organs. This type of research has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

Typically made of bio-plastics on which cells can attach and grow, tissue scaffolds provide a pathway for cells, nutrients, and fluids, and serve as a building block in the development of bio-artificial organs. In order for the living cells to grow like normal healthy cells, the surface of the scaffold must be porous or hollow.

“Think of a sponge, with all the channels throughout it,” Dr. Sundarram said. “Likewise, a tissue scaffold has to have channels. Because the three-dimensional printed scaffold is made of polymer, which is not a porous material, we must create the pores in order to increase surface area and roughness—allowing for better cell adhesion and growth during cell culture.”

A key innovation of the Fairfield study is its enhancement of the porous quality of the material without using chemicals, thereby increasing the viability of the cells in the tissue scaffolds. Dr. Sundarram uses 3D printing to create the polymer structure, and then uses microwave energy to “foam” the material. Carbon dioxide is added to the material and escapes under the heat of the microwaves, thus foaming the polymer.

Once the structure is formed, the scaffolds are seeded with cells and placed in bioreactor chambers that are fitted with sensors and fluidic networks that encourage cell growth. Within 10 days, new cells should fill the entire scaffold.

“This method overcomes issues with earlier foaming techniques that required the use of harsh chemicals, lacked control over pore size and porosity, and were only able to foam thin films,” said Dr. Sundarram. “The combination of 3D printing and microwave foaming allows not only for greater control over the morphology of the scaffolds, but also the ability to foam the scaffolds in a repeatable and controllable manner.”

“Fabrication of a scalable, inexpensive system for the development of bio-artificial organs is a key outcome,” added the engineering professor. “The end result will hopefully be organ transplantation.”

In their study, Dr. Sundarram and his engineering student-researchers worked with biology students to grow tissue to conduct cell culture and drug sensitivity analysis using MCF7 breast cancer cells.

“The results showed that cell attachment and viability on the microwave-foamed scaffolds is higher compared to the traditionally foamed scaffolds,” explained Dr. Sundarram.

Dr. Sundarram’s student-researchers are Class of 2022 undergraduates from Fairfield’s mechanical and biomedical engineering programs: Nwachukwu Ibekwe, Stephanie Prado, Sean Feeney, and Clarissa Rotonto.

Ibekwe ’22, a mechanical engineering student from Nigeria, began working with Dr. Sundarram last year.

“I was looking for a research experience and this one piqued my interest because it was very intricate,” Ibekwe recalled. “I was also excited about using instruments like the scanning electron microscope, and about contributing to cancer research.”

In the School of Engineering labs, students design the scaffolds, test them, carry out procedures, and analyze cell growth and viability. They presented their research, “Micro-Bioreactor for Tissue Scaffolds,” at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November 2021.

Speaking of his research experience, Ibekwe described the value of learning how to work with materials and to see how different properties function at the nanoscale level — a scale that is 1000 times smaller than human hair.

“Learning how the properties of materials function at a nano level is very helpful,” said Ibekwe, who hopes to go into the aerospace industry someday. “This experience, my training, and the chance to learn how to use these machines will be very useful in my future career.”