Biomimetic electrical stimulation for cardiac tissue engineering

A major challenge of tissue engineering is directing cells to establish the physiological structure and function of the tissue being replaced. Electrical stimulation has been used to induce synchronous contractions of cultured cardiac constructs. The hypothesis adopted for this study is that functional cardiac constructs can be engineered by "mimicking" the conditions present during cardiac development, and in particular, electrical stimulation using supra-threshold signals. For this Master's Thesis research, I have compared the material properties and charge-transfer characteristics at the electrode-electrolyte interface of various biocompatible materials, including carbon, stainless steel, titanium and titanium nitride, for use as electrodes in a biomimetic system for cardiac tissue engineering. I have also designed and implemented an electrical stimulator which is capable of modulating several important parameters of electrical stimulation, including stimulus amplitude and frequency.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Tandon, Nina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joel Voldman and Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38323

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/38323