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« Biomedical Engineering

BioPhysics

Contact: Dr S. Jayasinghe

The BioPhysics Group strives to thoroughly understand the intricacies of three major areas of research, patterning and self-assembly of all advanced materials (structural and functional) to the direct engineering of living organisms (primary, immortalised to stem cells). These areas of research are investigated from both a molecular and/or cellular level upwards to recognise the associated fundamental sciences through to focussed applications in the real world. The group's research dogma does not end there but extend to the development of novel processing techniques for handling all materials especially living biological organisms for the paradigm of drop and placement of all complex materials for widespread applications ranging from the physical to the life science worlds and at their interface.

Engineering living organisms

In 2005 the group pioneered and elucidated [1, 2] the ability to directly generate droplets containing living organisms by means of the jet-based process now referred to as "Bio- electrosprays", which has recently received much press coverage in the daily scientific news. This discovery since then has been advanced in terms of controllability of the size of generated droplets containing living organisms (both primary and immortalised cells) for precision placement to the processing of embryos [3-5]. We envisage this swiftly emerging biotechnique to be a major contributor in many fields ranging from tissues engineering and regenerative medicine to a rapid medical diagnostic approach for detecting cellular disorders to having implications to advanced therapeutics [6]. Similarly, we explored electrospinning for directly handling living cells, today this protocol is referred to as "Cell electrospinning" [7, 8]. Several other novel jet-based direct cell handling protocols have been discovered in our laboratory which will compete directly with both bio-electrosprays and cell electrospinning in the direct cell engineering endeavour [9-12].

Self-Assembling molecules

Recently we discovered, that by specially tailoring multi-phase media having particular properties at the molecular level electrosprays could be re-invented as an approach for forming self-supporting continuous fibres to structures form the nano- to micro-meter scale [13-15]. This technique is referred to as "Electrohydrodynamic jet assembly" which was recently cited in MaterialsWorld. We have developed this processing science and technology to engineer complex structures having intricate features such as overhangs and interconnects (previously not possible with any jet-technique) to a scale hither to unknown [16]. These findings have a plethora of applications extending to the life sciences [17].

In our laboratory these techniques have not only been explored for the direct process handling of living cells but have been applied to the process handling of a wide range of structural and functional nanomaterials in suspension at varied loadings [18-20].

For further information please contact: Dr. S.N. Jayasinghe, BioPhysics Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)2076792960, Fax: +44(0)2073880180, E-mail: s.jayasinghe@ucl.ac.uk

Selected References

[1] S.N. Jayasinghe, A.N. Qureshi and P.A.M. Eagles, Electrohydrodynamic jet processing: An advanced electric-field-driven jetting phenomenon for processing living cells, Small, 2(2006)216-219.

[2] S.N. Jayasinghe, P.A.M. Eagles and A.N. Qureshi, Electric field driven jetting: an emerging approach for processing living cells, Biotechnology Journal, 1(2006)86-94.

[3] S.N. Jayasinghe and A. Townsend-Nicholson, Stable electric-field driven cone-jetting of concentrated biosuspensions, Lab Chip, 6(2006)1086-1090.

[4] S.N. Jayasinghe and A. Townsend-Nicholson, Bio-electrosprays: The next generation of electrified jets, Biotechnology Journal, 9(2006)1018-1022.

[5] J. Clark and S.N. Jayasinghe, Bio-electrosprayed multicellular zebrafish embryos are viable and develop normally, Biomedical Materials: Materials for Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine, in press.

[6] S.N. Jayasinghe, Advanced jet-protocols for directly engineering living cells: a genesis to alternative bio-handling approaches for the life sciences, Regenerative Medicine, 3(2008)49- 61.

[7] A. Townsend-Nicholson and S.N. Jayasinghe, Cell Electrospinning: a unique biotechnique for encapsulating living organisms for generating active biological microthreads/scaffolds, Biomacromolecules, 7(2006)3364-3369.

[8] S.N. Jayasinghe, S. Irvine and J.R. McEwan, Cell electrospinning highly concentrated cellular suspensions containing primary living organisms into cell-bearing threads and scaffolds, Nanomedicine, 2(2007)555-567.

[9] S. Arumuganathar, S. Irvine, J.R. McEwan and S.N. Jayasinghe, Aerodynamically assisted bio-jets: the development of a novel and direct non-electric field driven methodology for engineering living organisms, Biomedical Materials: Materials for Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine, 2(2007)158-168.

[10] S. Arumuganathar, S. Irvine, J.R. McEwan and S.N. Jayasinghe, A novel direct aerodynamically assisted threading methodology for generating biologically viable microthreads encapsulating living primary cells, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 107(2008)1215-1225.

[11] S. Irvine, S. Arumuganathar, J.R. McEwan and S.N. Jayasinghe, Coaxial aerodynamically assisted bio-jets: a versatile paradigm for directly engineering living primary organisms, Eng. Life Sci., 7(2007) 599-610.

[12] S. Arumuganathar, S. Irvine, J.R. McEwan and S.N. Jayasinghe, A novel pressure assisted cell spinning protocol for directly processing living primary cells as biologically viable cell-bearing threads to scaffolds and membranes, Biomedical Materials: Materials for Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine, 2(2007) 211-219.

[13] S.N. Jayasinghe and A.C. Sullivan, Electrohydrodynamic atomization: An approach to growing continuous self-supporting polymeric fibres, Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 110(2006) 2522-2528.

[14] S.N. Jayasinghe and A.C. Sullivan, Electrospraying: an in-situ polymerisation route for fabricating high macroporous scaffolds, Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology, 38(2006) 293-302.

[15] A.C. Sullivan, K. Scott and S.N. Jayasinghe, Nanofabrication by electrohydrodynamic jetting of a tailor-made living siloxane sol, Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics., 208(2007) 2032-2038.

[16] A.C. Sullivan and S.N. Jayasinghe, Development of a direct three-dimensional biomicrofabrication concept based on electrospraying a custom made siloxane sol, Biomicrofluidics, 1(2007)034103.

[17] S. Irvine, A.C. Sullivan, J.R. McEwan and S.N. Jayasinghe, A unique physical-chemistry approach for fabricating cell friendly surfaces, Biotechnology Journal, 3(2008)124-128..

[18] S. Arumuganathar, and S.N. Jayasinghe, Pressure assisted spinning: A versatile and economical direct fibre to scaffold spinning methodology, Macro. Mol. Rapid Comm., 28(2007)1491-1496.

[19] S. Arumuganathar, S.N. Jayasinghe and N. Suter, Aerodynamically assisted jet processing of viscous single and multi-phase media, Soft Matter, 3(2007)605-612.

[20] S. Arumuganathar, S.N. Jayasinghe and N. Suter, A unique aerodynamically driven methodology for forming droplets, threads to scaffolds, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 104(2007)3844-3848.

Figure 1. Characteristic florescent micrograph depicting a living scaffold containing primary living cells (similar scaffolds/membranes could be directly prepared with stem cells), which could be explored in regenerative and therapeutic medicine.