Design of a Bench-Top Bioreactor System to Mimic the Dynamic Environment of Peripheral Arteries

Summary form only given. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, killing at least 787,000 people every year. Similarly, more than 200 million people worldwide are affected by Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), which causes atherosclerosis in the lowerextremity arteries. Atherosclerosis of the periphery is a problem that is very underdiagnosed and undertreated by the medical community. Currently, it is known that vascular interventional procedures, in particular stents, fail to treat PAD due to stent fracture caused by bending, torsion and axial forces of periphery arteries. Furthermore, the impact of these forces on regenerating cells and newer interventional procedures such as drug coated balloons and other non-stent platforms remains unknown. For this reason, the aim of this work was to design a bench-top bioreactor system to mimic the dynamic environment of peripheral arteries. A system compromised of motors and a holding chamber unit was developed to house freshly harvested arteries and expose the vessel to twisting and axial forces within a culture incubator. The developed bioreactor system will thus be used to study the impact of arterial mechanical deformation on current and next generation interventional devices.