Aims and Scope
Recent Articles
In vitro Biomodels in Stenotic Arteries to Perform Blood Analogues Flow Visualizations and Measurements: A Review
Violeta Carvalho, Inês Maia, Andrews Souza, João Ribeiro, Pedro Costa, H. Puga, Senhorinha Teixeira, Rui A. Lima
Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death globally and the most common pathological process is atherosclerosis. Over the years, these cardiovascular complications have been extensively studied by applying in vivo, in vitro and numerical methods (in silico). In vivo studies represent more accurately the physiological conditions and provide the most realistic data. Nevertheless, these approaches are expensive, and it is complex to control several physiological variables. Hence, the continuous effort to find reliable alternative methods has been growing. In the last decades, numerical simulations have been widely used to assess the blood flow behavior in stenotic arteries and, consequently, providing insights into the cardiovascular disease condition, its progression and therapeutic optimization. However, it is necessary to ensure its accuracy and reliability by comparing the numerical simulations with clinical and experimental data. For this reason, with the progress of the in vitro flow measurement techniques and rapid prototyping, experimental investigation of hemodynamics has gained widespread attention. The present work reviews state-of-the-art in vitro macro-scale arterial stenotic biomodels for flow measurements, summarizing the different fabrication methods, blood analogues and highlighting advantages and limitations of the most used techniques.
December 31, 2020
Articles
- December 21, 2020
An Integrated Hardware and Software Application to Support Wound Measurement Using a 3D Scanner and Image Processing Techniques
October 23, 2020
Temperature Influences at the Myoelectric Level in the Upper Extremities of the Human Body
April 23, 2020Numerical Computational Study of Photoacoustic Signals from Eye Models to Detect Diabetic Retinopathy
March 20, 2020
A Standard Protocol Proposal for Reliable and Time-Saving Shielding Effectiveness Measurements for MRI Faraday Cages
October 15, 2020
Simulation of Bronchial Airflow in COPD Patients
October 26, 2020
MU-LapaRobot: A Corporative Surgical Robot for Laparoscopic Surgery
Editor's Choice
Physiological Microenvironmental Conditions in Different Scalable Culture Systems for Pluripotent Stem Cell Expansion and Differentiation
Fuad G. Torizal, Ikki Horiguchi, Yasuyuki Sakai
Human Pluripotent Stem Cells (PSCs) are a valuable cell type that has a wide range of biomedical applications because they can differentiate into many types of adult somatic cell. Numerous studies have examined the clinical applications of PSCs. However, several factors such as bioreactor design, mechanical stress, and the physiological environment have not been optimized. These factors can significantly alter the pluripotency and proliferation properties of the cells, which are important for the mass production of PSCs. Nutritional mass transfer and oxygen transfer must be effectively maintained to obtain a high yield. Various culture systems are currently available for optimum cell propagation by maintaining the physiological conditions necessary for cell cultivation. Each type of culture system using a different configuration with various advantages and disadvantages affecting the mechanical conditions in the bioreactor, such as shear stress. These factors make it difficult to preserve the cellular viability and pluripotency of PSCs. Additional limitations of the culture system for PSCs must also be identified and overcome to maintain the culture conditions and enable large-scale expansion and differentiation of PSCs. This review describes the different physiological conditions in the various culture systems and recent developments in culture technology for PSC expansion and differentiation.
February 28, 2019
