ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING FOR THE PRODUCTION OF BIOREACTORS:
Bioreactor prototype development produced by additive manufacturing.
Severe damage to bone tissue, which requires its replacement, is a problem that affects millions of people annually, and whose current treatment techniques still have limitations and problems. Seeking an alternative to these traditional techniques, studies have analyzed the cultivation and/or differentiation of the patient's own bone cells into porous support structures (scaffolds) tailored to meet their needs. However, the culture of cells in these structures requires dynamic processes, to enable the transport of nutrients in larger tissues, and for the application of mechanical stimuli, such as shear stress, necessary to induce some bone cells to carry out internal biochemical reactions, releasing molecules essential for the formation of this tissue. For this purpose, bioreactors are used, equipment with complex structures, difficult to manufacture, which allow the control of the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the system. Aiming to simplify its development, researchers have studied the application of Additive Manufacturing in its production. Thus, this work aims to propose a prototype of a bioreactor for the cultivation of bone cells, to be produced through Additive Manufacturing and validated by simulating the shear stress generated in a scaffold model inserted in the system, performed in the Flow Simulation tool, in Solidworks 2013 software, and compared with literature values. The simulations indicate that the material and technique used provide adequate mechanical strength for the proposed application. All analyzed variations of the prototype were able to generate shear stress values within the range identified as adequate, but the models tested showed small variations in relation to the homogeneity of the culture medium perfusion through the scaffold, requiring more in-depth future studies. Furthermore, the proposed model differs considerably from the others identified in the literature, having modularity, adaptability and practicality as its main positive characteristics.