Project description
Advanced biomodulation of engineered tissues
3D engineered tissues replicate the structure and function of native tissues, providing advanced models for studying human physiology and disease. However, current tools lack the ability to mimic the dynamic microenvironment of the body by providing electrical and mechanical modulation. The ERC-funded 5D-Neuro project proposes to develop a novel biomaterial with a capacity for electrical and mechanical biomodulation that can be used for the construction of 3D engineered tissues. Electrical stimulation will use optically activated silicon nanostructures while mechanical modulation will leverage iron microstructures manipulated by magnetic fields. These technologies will be integrated into the 5D-NEURO platform which can be employed to advance our understanding of brain developmental research, neuronal growth and regeneration.
Objective
The cellular microenvironment is tightly regulated by biochemical and physical cues. While state of the art electrical and mechanical devices can perturb the biophysical cell niche in 2D monolayers, 3D tissue cultures are considered a much more comprehensive and representative model of the in vivo microenvironment. However, the available biomodulation “toolkit” does not meet the required level of complexity, specificity, and accuracy. This limitation hinders the ability to address basic questions in brain research and to develop new nonpharmacological interventions such as next generation neuroengineering-technologies and biointerfaces.
We propose to develop a novel biomaterial for nongenetic leadless electrical and mechanical biomodulation in 3D engineered tissues. The leadless electrical biomodulation will be induced via optical illumination of semiconducting silicon micro- and nanostructures, which will potentially yield spatial resolution of hundreds of nanometres, two orders of magnitude smaller than the current state-of-the-art 3D biointerfaces. The mechanical perturbation will be achieved by spatially defined iron microstructures that will be manipulated via spatially homogenous magnetic fields, resulting in mechanical perturbation resolution down to few microns, which is unprecedented in 3D tissue constructs. Lastly, we will integrate the two materials into a single 3D platform to construct the 5D-NEURO, allowing leadless electrical and mechanical bi-modal perturbation simultaneously and independently.
Herein, we will both establish a new tool for biophysical modulation and generate new fundamental knowledge about the role of bioelectrical, biomechanical, and their synergistic effect on neuronal growth and regeneration in 3D models. Moreover, such a platform lays the ground for next generation engineered tissues for applications spanning from fundamental brain developmental research and future translational clinical interventions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrymetalloids
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
32000 Haifa
Israel