A Biodegradable Magnetic Microrobot Based on Gelatin Methacrylate for Precise Delivery of Stem Cells with Mass Production Capability.
Seungmin NohSungwoong JeonEunhee KimUntaek OhDanbi ParkSun Hwa ParkSung Won KimSalvador PanéBradley J NelsonJin-Young KimHong Soo ChoiPublished in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) (2022)
A great deal of research has focused on small-scale robots for biomedical applications and minimally invasive delivery of therapeutics (e.g., cells, drugs, and genes) to a target area. Conventional fabrication methods, such as two-photon polymerization, can be used to build sophisticated micro- and nanorobots, but the long fabrication cycle for a single microrobot has limited its practical use. This study proposes a biodegradable spherical gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) microrobot for mass production in a microfluidic channel. The proposed microrobot is fabricated in a flow-focusing droplet generator by shearing a mixture of GelMA, photoinitiator, and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) with a mixture of oil and surfactant. Human nasal turbinate stem cells (hNTSCs) are loaded on the GelMA microrobot, and the hNTSC-loaded microrobot shows precise rolling motion in response to an external rotating magnetic field. The microrobot is enzymatically degraded by collagenase, and released hNTSCs are proliferated and differentiated into neuronal cells. In addition, the feasibility of the GelMA microrobot as a cell therapeutic delivery system is investigated by measuring electrophysiological activity on a multielectrode array. Such a versatile and fully biodegradable microrobot has the potential for targeted stem cell delivery, proliferation, and differentiation for stem cell-based therapy.
Keyphrases
- stem cells
- drug delivery
- iron oxide nanoparticles
- cell therapy
- induced apoptosis
- minimally invasive
- single cell
- cancer therapy
- high throughput
- signaling pathway
- endothelial cells
- small molecule
- high resolution
- hyaluronic acid
- risk assessment
- robot assisted
- molecularly imprinted
- blood brain barrier
- living cells
- iron oxide
- induced pluripotent stem cells
- tandem mass spectrometry
- atomic force microscopy
- lactic acid