Design and Characterization of a Microfluidic Biological System for Bone Tissue

Tissue engineering has managed to revolutionize the transplantation and regenerative medicine, it is responsible for developing biomaterials to generate a promising approach for studying complex physiological processes in vitro. The design and application of biological systems evaluate a microfluidic platform based on organs physiology, modeling the nutrient distribution, and testing potential implants. The present investigation aims to design and characterize a biological system to simulate the microfluidic environment of the bone tissue. The system must provide the conditions for adequate cell regulation, to achieve this, adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation are used, as well as the adequate delivery of bioactive factors such as growth and adhesion. A novel hydraulic circuit with radial flow and their components were designed in SolidWorks, then the pieces were calculated with the Navier-Stokes equations using ANSYS and COMSOL software, to have a laminar environment and their behavior using microfluidics and cells mimicking the bone structure. The components were generated by 3D printing and the additive stereolithography resin technique. According to the CFD simulations, it was found that the system had a media flow of 18.56 nl/s with the smallest pressure of 146.32 mPa our chamber is the optimum model for the bone cells. Our microfluidic system’s design shows the flow change can be used to follow the bone anatomy, which indicates an appropriate irrigation of nutrients for the cells. The proposed biological system has confirmed to be an adequate model for the bone tissue with a continuous irrigation of the media.