Development of a Cellular Fiber Spinning Technology for Regenerative Medicine

The prolonged success of cellular encapsulation in delivering insulin to treat Type I Diabetes has encouraged researchers to conceptualize ways in which cellular encapsulation can be implemented in an array of other clinical applications. This thesis investigated the development of a novel in-house textile hollow fiber spinning process in order to encapsulate cells. After development of the cellular encapsulation methods, a 21 day in vitro macroscopic evaluation was employed to confirm cellular viability and quantify the metabolic activity response of green fluorescent protein (GFP) labeled bovine mammary epithelial cells (MAC-Ts) that were either suspended in a low viscosity sodium alginate based solution, manually injected into the lumen of the hollow fiber (MI method), and later immobilized through a gelation process; or pre-mixed and co-extruded with a medium viscosity sodium alginate based solution (CO-X method), and immobilized inside the walls of the hollow fiber. No decrease in fluorescence was observed, and it was found that the CO-X and MI methods provided total lactic acid productions of 1.6 and 1.5 g/L glucose consumptions of 6.1 and 4.0 g/L, respectively, after 21 days of culturing. Histomorphological analyses revealed that the average cell area of MAC-Ts increased 25 and 88% after 21 days of encapsulation under the CO-X and MI methods, respectively. There was little to no evidence of cell clusters, and oval, cobblestone morphologies. Based on our findings, it is concluded that our novel in-house textile hollow fiber