Application of In Vitro Electrical Stimulation in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Approaches

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Liudmila Leppik

University Hospital Frankfurt, Department of Trauma, Hand and Reconstructive Surgery, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Dr. Leppik graduated in biochemistry and has a PhD in molecular biology. She has broad research experience in the fields of human transcriptomic, tumor virology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in Russia and Germany. Currently she is an assistant director at Frankfurter Initiative for Regenerative medicine (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main) and her main research focus is the role of bioelectricity in tissue regeneration and stem cell biology. In different animal and in vitro models she investigates the effects of electrical stimulation on such aspects of tissue healing/regeneration as stem cells proliferation/differentiation, extracellular matrix deposition, immune reaction, activation of specific gene pathways and others. Special focus of her present research is studying the role of adult stem cells and different bone marrow cellular fractions in bone regeneration.

Sahba Mobini

Instituto de Micro y Nanotecnología (IMN-CNM CSIC) (CEI UAM+CSIC), Madrid, Spain; Centro de Biología Molecular, CBMSO, (CEI UAM+CSIC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Dr. Mobini has a PhD in biomedical engineering and 10 years of postdoctoral training and research experiences in Germany, UK, and USA (2010-2020). Her research focuses on the use of physical cues such as electrical stimulation and surface topography in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. She is working on designing and engineering of systems to mimic cell microenvironment features (e.g., biochemical, mechanical, and electrical stimuli) to guide cellular processes and regenerative responses. Her main research interest is the use of electrical stimulation in regenerative engineering. She has been studying the role of electrical stimulation in tissue regeneration, in vitro and in vivo since 2014 and developed electro-bioreactor systems to deliver the required electrical field to the cells in 2D or 3D cultures. Previously, she investigated the effect of electrical stimulation in regenerative responses of the cells in bone and neural tissues. Currently she is a contracted researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), leading a project to incorporate electrical stimulation to in vitro systems for developing therapeutics and in vitro models to study healthy and diseased central nervous system, and the therapeutic role of electrical stimulation to control regenerative responses and plasticity of neurons after stroke.

Collection Overview

In this proposed collection the focus is on methods describing the use of electrical stimulation to treat cells in vitro. We aim to collect visual methods regarding innovative and novel in vitro electrical stimulation setups and systems, including but not limited to microfluidic devices and wireless technologies that are designed and used in 2D (e.g., monolayer cell culture on polymer, conductive, and/or biologically modified surfaces) and 3D platforms (e.g., cell seeded in 3D scaffolds, tissue explants, and organoids). Moreover, we will encourage our contributors 1) to present the methods they used for characterization of devices, biomaterials, electrodes, etc.; 2) to deeply describe the rational of electrical stimulation protocols they used that can include computational modeling and mathematical calculations; and 3), if applicable, to provide visualizable guides for describing their findings on underlying mechanisms.

The collection will help audiences who are interested in electrical stimulation for biological purposes and those who are seeking technical and scientific solutions for unmet challenges. Also, we will bring the language/terminologies that are used by different groups closer and make these reports clearer to our readers.

We believe that introducing novel electrical stimulation devices will open opportunities to get an overview of existing devices, their specification and usage, and trigger ideas for future innovations. The collective results on the effect of electrical stimulation on the cells in vitro and corresponding mechanisms will assist in the development of clinical strategies for the use of electrical stimulation in treating devastating diseases that have no current clinical pathways.