We propose to design and construct a custom culture chamber system which can provide controlled mechanical tissue culture environments and be mounted on a microscope stage used for nonlinear optical microscopy (NLOM). A multidisciplinary team has been assembled, integrating expertise in mechanobiology, nonlinear optics and tissue engineering. The culture chamber system will be the first of its kind, designed for longitudinal studies of tissue response to controlled mechanical loads using NLOM to evaluate microstructure organization and matrix content and stress-strain measurements to characterize bulk mechanical properties on individual tissue specimens. By combining biomechanical measurements with constituent specific, non-destructive, intravital imaging, fundamental structure-function relationships may be directly studied and delineating biological events responsible for translating cellular expression profiles into bulk tissue response becomes feasible. In the two year project period, we propose to build this novel culture chamber system and establish protocols for acquiring quantitative measures of extracellular matrix parameters using NLOM. These experimental protocols will be designed to monitor evolving changes in tissue microstructure and bulk mechanical properties over a three week period. These quantitative NLOM measurements will be correlated with bulk biomechanical properties on the exact same tissue specimen and will provide experimental parameters for our developing mathematical theory of tissue growth and remodeling. This novel experimental platform will form the basis for novel and innovative studies in mechanobiology.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
5R21EB004846-02
Application #
7118571
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-MI (01))
Program Officer
Hunziker, Rosemarie
Project Start
2005-09-01
Project End
2007-08-31
Budget Start
2006-09-01
Budget End
2007-08-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$135,856
Indirect Cost
Name
Texas Engineering Experiment Station
Department
Biomedical Engineering
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
847205572
City
College Station
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
77845
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Larson, Adam M; Yeh, Alvin T (2006) Ex vivo characterization of sub-10-fs pulses. Opt Lett 31:1681-3