Students will develop a computational model of cell effects on an extracellular matrix (ECM) in a synthetic anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) scaffold.

In this module, students developed a computational model of cell effects on an extracellular matrix (ECM) in a synthetic ligament scaffold. They used this model to propose an improvement to a tissue scaffold design, making connections between modeling and design.

Design need: students were asked to (voluntarily) share whether or not they had experienced soft tissue injuries, such as ACL tears, rotator cuff tears, tendon tears, etc. Those who had were then asked how well those injuries healed and many responded by saying that the injured tissue was never the same. This activity revealed the need for better treatments for soft tissue injuries and motivated the design project, which aimed to help improve soft tissue scaffold designs. To improve designs, the students were required to build a computational model that incorporated design factors, such as fiber alignment, and calculated metrics of scaffold efficacy, such as fiber turnover rate. They systematically modified design factors (inputs) to the model and observed the effects of those modifications on the metrics of efficacy (outputs). Based on their findings with the model, they searched the literature to find experimental methods that could be used in real life to change the design parameter that improved the scaffold efficacy most. 

Who: this module was designed for a senior-level biomaterials course. The class had 18 students, about half mechanical engineers and half bioengineers. The students were assigned to teams of 3 students.

Where: this project was part of a 3-day-per-week lecture course and would work best in a computer lab, though it worked well in a regular classroom with student laptops. This module was the last of three extended modeling projects in the semester. 

What: this module leveraged content about scaffold fabrication, design parameters, and metrics of scaffold efficacy, as well as a publication that described cell migration in ECM. Many of the assignments were focused on recreating a modified version of the cell migration model. The module was deployed by having students read a journal article, then follow the instructions in a series of handouts. Their work was graded using rubrics for their final reports and codes. 

When: this module was implemented over four weeks with two sessions per week devoted to the material in the module and one session per week dedicated to other content, on average. The in-class sessions for this module were used as group work time. Students were expected to complete any addition work for each project assignment outside of class.