Tendon Tissue Engineering Information

Development of a Novel Tissue Bioreactor for Culturing Tendons. Various types of accidents lead to tendon injuries which are difficult to treat. To obtain more precise results about the process of tendon regeneration, a bioreactor was developed based on prior experiments with local institutes. As one of the major goals was to refrain from animal experiments, the reactor was designed to cultivate tendons in situations as true to real life as possible. Six cultivation chambers allow for parallel clamping of 1.3-cm-long rat tendons while providing them with circulating nutrient solution. To mimic lifelike conditions, the tendons are strained by an array of motors. A specially developed software monitors the operations based on sensor results and measures tendon growth using a highly accurate optical system. This novel device is expected to assist institutes worldwide in advancing their tendon-research.