Page 32 - AWSAR 2.0
P. 32

8 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
We have developed a platform that can lead us toward this objective. But every process needs a start point, in this case the selection of an organ.
Pharmaceutically thinking, the first site of drug metabolism in our body is the liver, which becomes the first victim of drug toxicity. This makes the liver the first of vital organs to be an organ of choice for developing into an artificial and controlled system. One way to achieve it is by taking liver cells out of the body and growing them on a Petri plate (glass or plastic plate specially adapted to make cells stick) in a laboratory. However, the absence of a natural (human body) environment compromises their functioning, and the drug-based study may not give true results.
So, we thought of developing a synthetic system that mimics their natural environment. This system, when provided to liver cells, should retain their natural activities. To achieve this, we carefully analyzed the
cells grown on two-dimensional
surfaces in the laboratory and
considered providing three-
dimensional support for the
cells to grow.
An ideal support structure
should provide sufficient space
for cells to grow and enough
pores for the exchange of
gas (like oxygen and carbon
dioxide) and materials
(nutrients and waste). It should
have fast and high fluid uptake
capacity for the uptake of
nutrients and make them available to cells. In addition, our cells can sense the environment. A soft structure resembles a healthy tissue, while a stiffer structure resembles a diseased tissue. Hence, it is very important that gels are soft, or else the cells may perceive that the growing conditions are not healthy. In other words, the liver (organ) loses its softness when
it is unhealthy to become stiffer, and a stiff artificial gel will lead liver cells to behave like a diseased liver.
After a lot of experiments, we finally
fabricated a three-dimensional gel using a known nontoxic polymer – poly (N-isopropyl acrylamide). However, cells could not bind to it. So, we added cell-friendly gelatin to allow liver cells to attach. Thus, gelatin supported liver cell growth, while poly (N-isopropyl
acrylamide) provided infrastructural support.
After multiple tests, we found that our developed gels had a very high surface area and high porosity with a fast and high fluid uptake capacity. The gels were also elastic, that is, they retained their shape and properties even after application of pressure such as squeezing. In addition to these properties, the most interesting property of our gel was its stiffness, which was similar
to a healthy liver, that is, the gel was as soft as a normal healthy liver. These results were convincing enough to say that our gel was completely suitable for the cells.
When attempts were made to grow liver cells on the gel, we found that they did not die and grew very well on the gels. This was becoming exciting. We did tests for important
    Pharmaceutically thinking, the first site of drug metabolism in our body is the liver, which becomes the first victim of drug toxicity. This makes the liver the first of vital organs to be an organ of choice for developing into an artificial and controlled system.
  







































































   30   31   32   33   34