Electrospun hollow fibres provide a biomimetic fibrous architecture for three-dimensional cell culture, but this environment is not static. During long-term culture, cells proliferate, migrate and deposit extracellular matrix (ECM), while biodegradable fibres progressively lose mass and mechanical integrity. Together, these processes continuously alter scaffold architecture, permeability, transport and the mechanical environment experienced by cells.
This PhD project will investigate how tissue and matrix architecture evolves within electrospun hollow fibre bioreactors and how this remodelling influences long-term function of the platform. Electrospun hollow fibre with controlled architecture, porosity and degradation rates will be cultured with human cells under dynamic perfusion and in the presence of mechanical stimulation. Changes in cell distribution, ECM deposition, fibre degradation, porosity, permeability and mechanical properties will be characterised over time using imaging, biochemical and mechanical approaches.
Experimental studies may then be integrated with mathematical and computational models describing tissue growth, matrix deposition, scaffold degradation and mass transport. These models will explore feedback between biological remodelling and bioreactor function - for example, how ECM accumulation alters fluid flow and nutrient transport, and how these changes subsequently regulate cell behaviour.
The project will provide a basis for designing electrospun hollow fibre bioreactors that maintain appropriate transport and mechanical environments throughout long-term culture.
It will provide interdisciplinary training in electrospinning, biomaterials, bioreactors, cell culture, mass transport and mathematical modelling, while contributing to the development of a scalable, physiologically relevant in vitro platform for biological studies, therapeutic testing and other biomedical applications.
