Investigation of electric field effect for collagen based scaffold production

In line with developments in science and increasing needs, the expectations in the field of healthcare have gradually increased and today have reached the level of developing artificial tissues and organs. Initially, metals, ceramics and plastics have been often used for biotechnology products, using a common infrastructure with various industries. With these materials, precision-sized, mechanically, and biologically resistant surgical instruments and implants have been produced rapidly. However, the trend today is to use natural tissue materials to produce tissues and organs that exhibit biological activity. The way these materials are obtained, the process of converting them into products, their mechanical properties, the standards, and regulations of these materials are quite different from other industrial materials. Biological materials can be expected to provide sufficient mechanical strength in biomimetic products as they do in natural tissues. However, since the current production techniques cannot provide the network structure and cross-link formation that exists in natural structures, structures as strong as natural tissues cannot be formed. Also, the fact that crosslinking chemicals can exhibit dose dependent toxic effects, limits their use. Biomimicry studies in the literature have mainly focused on providing cells with a two or three-dimensional adhesion environment where these cells can exhibit their natural behaviors, transforming the provided tissue skeleton into a functional tissue. For this purpose, natural fibre structures, signal molecules and physical stimuli are used in attempts to simulate the natural environment. In this thesis, the potential of using the electric field effect as a tissue skeleton fabrication method was investigated with a novel approach. Electrodes, solution chambers and control circuits are designed in a modular manner, as these can contribute to the cost-effectiveness and wider adoption of the application. In the study, collagen type-1 protein was used, which is frequently used in the literature due to its widespread availability and structural role in living beings, however, has not been demonstrated to move under the effect of dielectrophoresis. Since the construction time depends on the size of the particles, a mechanism has been designed to provide high electric field intensity, which can move large particles. Collagen particles of ~30, 70, 80, and 1150 µm-length in an acetic acid solution chamber placed on the manufactured electrodes were observed to exhibit linear, rotational, and variable directional movements under the effect of dielectrophoresis. Based on the ability of dielectrophoresis to organize cells and building materials without contact, it is thought that it can be used for tissue skeleton production in the field without the need for advanced sterilization infrastructure. With the device developed within the scope of this thesis, a utility model application was made to the Turkish Patent Institute with the title of "Biological Material Orientation Device" and application number 2021/019014.