Fuller, Haley
(2023)
Robotics and Automation in Cardiovascular-Inspired Platforms for Bioengineering.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Targeted drug delivery systems are an emerging technological focus for precision medicine. Ideal drug delivery systems would employ strategies to enhance treatment efficacy and safety by localizing therapeutic release and minimizing toxic side effects. Towards this end, micro-scale robotics, or microrobots, have been under development as untethered tools to noninvasively navigate fluidic environments and perform medical tasks. However, continued microrobot development is stunted by the lack of a standardized empirical model of physiological relevance in which microrobot functionality for targeted drug delivery can be benchmarked.
To demonstrate targeted drug delivery potential, a standardized, in vitro tool to model essential in vivo functionalities of microrobots, such as locomotion, actuation, and on-target drug release, is needed. On-a-chip technologies have gained traction as modular, fluidics-based physiological systems for bioengineering. Capitalizing on the compatibility of on-a-chip systems for microrobot development and testing, a preclinical on-a-chip platform for testing novel drug delivery microrobots and indicating translational potential at an early stage could be realized.
Here, a biomimetic, on-a-chip platform for standardized testing of biomedical microrobot functionality is described. This platform features a cardiovascular-inspired arena integrated with an open-source control system for magnetic microrobot actuation. The semi-automated control system uses common laboratory hardware to magnetically guide a swimming microrobot to a target location within the on-a-chip arena using user-defined commands that are informed by real-time visualization. This platform models a promising control scheme for in vivo deployment to demonstrate robust locomotion and actuation of a swimming microrobot. The on-a-chip platform was then enhanced as a biologically active, on-a-chip (biochip) platform and employed as a model system for microrobot-mediated targeted drug delivery. The spatially discretized delivery of antibiotics by a magnetic microrobot in a minimal disease model on-a-chip is presented as a tool to benchmark and ultimately fast-track technological advances in microrobotic drug delivery systems and automation in bioengineering.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
19 January 2023 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
26 September 2022 |
| Approval Date: |
19 January 2023 |
| Submission Date: |
27 October 2022 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
133 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Swanson School of Engineering > Bioengineering |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
N/A |
| Date Deposited: |
19 Jan 2023 19:14 |
| Last Modified: |
19 Jan 2023 19:14 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/43767 |
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