Advanced robotics to deal with the translational hole in tendon engineering: Review paper

A overview paper by scientists on the University of Oxford mentioned doable advantages of utilizing humanoid musculoskeletal robots and tender robotic programs as bioreactor platforms in producing clinically helpful tendon constructs.

The new overview paper, printed on Sept. 15, 2022 within the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, summarizes current trends in tendon tissue engineering and discusses how typical bioreactors are unable to offer physiologically related mechanical stimulation on condition that they largely depend on uniaxial tensile levels. The paper then highlights musculoskeletal humanoid robots and tender robotic programs as platforms for offering physiologically related mechanical stimulation that would overcome this translational hole.

Tendon and tender tissue accidents are a rising social and financial drawback, with the tendon restore market within the United States being estimated at $ 1.5 billion USD. Tendon restore surgical procedures have excessive charges of revision, with upwards of 40% of rotator cuff repairs failing post-operatively. Production of engineered tendon grafts for medical use is a possible resolution for this problem. Conventional tendon bioreactors primarily present uniaxial tensile stimulation. The lack of programs which recapitulate in vivo tendon loading is a significant translational hole.

“The human body provides tendons with three-dimensional mechanical stress in the form of tension, compression, torsion, and shear. Current research suggests that healthy native tendon tissue requires multiple types and directions of stress. Advanced robotic systems such as musculoskeletal humanoids and soft robotics promising platforms that may be able to mimic in vivo tendon loading,” defined creator Iain Sander, a researcher on the University of Oxford with the Soft Tissue Engineering Research Group.

Musculoskeletal humanoid robots had been initially designed for purposes equivalent to crash check dummies, prostheses, and athletic enhancement. They try to imitate human anatomy by having comparable physique proportions, skeletal construction, muscle association, and joint construction. Musculoskeletal humanoids equivalent to Roboy and Kenshiro use tendon-driven programs with myorobotic actuators that mimic human neuromuscular tissue.

Myorobotic models include a brushless dc motor which generates pressure like human muscle tissues, attachment cables which act because the tendon unit, and a motor driver board with a spring encoder, which act because the neurologic system by sensing variables together with pressure, compression, muscle size, and temperature.

Proposed benefits of musculoskeletal humanoids embody the power to offer multiaxial loading, potential for loading in consideration of human motion patterns, and provision of loading magnitudes similar to in vivo forces. One latest examine has demonstrated the feasibility of rising human tissue on a musculoskeletal humanoid robotic for tendon engineering.

Biohybrid tender robotics is targeted on growing biomimetic, compliant robotic programs which allow adaptive, versatile interactions with unpredictable environments. These robotic programs are actuated by a lot of modalities, together with temperature, pneumatic and hydraulic stress, and light-weight.

They are made of soppy supplies together with hydrogels, rubber, and even human musculoskeletal tissue. These programs are already getting used to offer mechanical stimulation to easy muscle tissue constructs and have been applied in vivo in a porcine mannequin.

These programs are enticing for tendon tissue engineering on condition that: i) their versatile, compliant properties enable them wrap round anatomic constructions, mimicking the configuration of native tendon ii) they’re able to offering multiaxial actuation and iii) a lot of the strategies utilized in tender robotics overlap with present tendon tissue engineering practices.

Looking ahead, the crew envision superior robotic programs as platforms which is able to present physiologically related mechanical stimulus to tendon grafts previous to clinical use. There are a lot of challenges to think about as superior robotic programs are applied. Firstly, will probably be necessary for future experiments to match applied sciences proposed on this overview to traditional bioreactors.

With growth of programs able to offering multiaxial loading, will probably be necessary to seek out strategies for quantifying pressure in 3D. Finally, superior robotic programs will have to be extra inexpensive and accessible for widespread implementation.

“An increasing number of research groups are showing that it is feasible to use advanced robotics in combination with living cells and tissues for tissue engineering and bioactuation applications. We are now at an exciting stage where we can explore the different possibilities of incorporating these technologies in tendon tissue engineering and examine whether they can really help improve the quality of engineered tendon grafts,” stated Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy, the overview article’s senior creator.

In the long run, these applied sciences have potential to enhance high quality of life for people, by lowering ache and threat of tendon restore failure, for healthcare programs, by decreasing the variety of revision surgical procedures, and for the economic system, by bettering office productiveness and decreasing healthcare prices.

Provided by
Beijing Institute of Technology Press Co., Ltd