In vitro small intestinal models are an alternative to in vivo trials due to their reproducibility, ease and lack of animals used. While cell monolayers and scaffolds have previously used. They have failed to account for the flow and shear stress of the system as well as the topography of intestinal villi. The goal of this project is to modify a prototype bioreactor that combines the topography of intestinal scaffolds with fluid flow in a 3D bioreactor. The bioreactor had major problems with leaking that had to fixed for it to work better in experiments.

The bioreactor will also be further modified for specific tasks that will allow it to be a better engineered product, emphasizing ease of use and reproducibility of experiments. For the project Caco-2 cells will be grown on the scaffolds to mimic intestinal cells. The growth of cells will be compared on the bioreactor with the added flow component. In addition, cellular products will be investigated to test accuracy of the cell culture. Finally, microbiome diversity will be tested as changes are made to the microbial makeup of the reactor and flowing fluid.