Tissue Engineering

Fabrication of Tissue Engineered Tympanic Membrane Patches

The goal of this project is to utilize computer-aided design and injection molding technologies to tissue engineer precisely-shaped cartilage in the shape of butterfly tympanic membrane patches out of chondrocyte-seeded calcium alginate gels. Molds will be designed with the aid of computer programs and built using synthetic materials utilizing fused deposition modeling. Tympanic membrane patches will be fabricated using bovine articular chondrocytes seeded at high density in calcium alginate gels. Molded patches will be cultured in vitro for up to 10 weeks, then assessed biochemically, morphologically, and histologically. We will fabricate cartilage-seeded tympanic membrane patches using cell culture techniques. The patches will then be placed into chinchilla tympanic membrane perforations, and the membranes will be examined histologically after harvesting. The work will be sponsored by Gyrus Corporation.

Cliff Megerian, MD in collaboration with
L. Bonassar, PhD, Cornell University