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Science 7 September 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5843, pp. 1366 - 1370
DOI: 10.1126/science.1146885
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Reports

Muscular Thin Films for Building Actuators and Powering Devices

Adam W. Feinberg,1 Alex Feigel,2 Sergey S. Shevkoplyas,2 Sean Sheehy,1 George M. Whitesides,2* Kevin Kit Parker1*

We demonstrate the assembly of biohybrid materials from engineered tissues and synthetic polymer thin films. The constructs were built by culturing neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes on polydimethylsiloxane thin films micropatterned with extracellular matrix proteins to promote spatially ordered, two-dimensional myogenesis. The constructs, termed muscular thin films, adopted functional, three-dimensional conformations when released from a thermally sensitive polymer substrate and were designed to perform biomimetic tasks by varying tissue architecture, thin-film shape, and electrical-pacing protocol. These centimeter-scale constructs perform functions as diverse as gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming with fine spatial and temporal control and generating specific forces as high as 4 millinewtons per square millimeter.

1 Disease Biophysics Group, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
2 Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gwhitesides{at}gmwgroup.harvard.edu (G.M.W.); kkparker{at}seas.harvard.edu (K.K.P.)

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cardiogenesis and the Complex Biology of Regenerative Cardiovascular Medicine.
K. R. Chien, I. J. Domian, and K. K. Parker (2008)
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Forced Alignment of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Undergoing Cardiomyogenic Differentiation Affects Functional Integration With Cardiomyocyte Cultures.
D. A. Pijnappels, M. J. Schalij, A. A. Ramkisoensing, J. van Tuyn, A. A.F. de Vries, A. van der Laarse, D. L. Ypey, and D. E. Atsma (2008)
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)