2 nd YRA MedTech Symposium, Young Researchers Academy  MedTech in NRW jointly held with the IEEE Workshop & SENSORICA 2017 Hochschule Ruhr West, June 8-9, Mülheim a. d. Ruhr, Germany, 2017 Upgrade of Bioreactor System Providing Physiological Stimuli to Engineered Musculoskeletal Tissues Michel Schmitjans (1,2) , Jan Bernd Vorstius (1) , Waldemar Zylka (2) (1) School of Science and Engineering University of Dundee Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, United Kingdom (2) Faculty of Electric Engineering and Applied Natural Sciences, Westphalian University, Campus Gelsenkirchen, D-45897 Gelsenkirchen, Germany E-Mail: michel.schmitjans@studmail.w-hs.de Abstract  A novel central control interface (CCI) is developed to improve the modular bioreactor system with regard to extendability and modifiability in Tissue Engineering (TE) applications. This paper presents the results developed in the project with open-source hardware and the graphical programming system LabVIEW. A new platform independent User Interface was further developed to contribute to the new flexibility of the device. Introduction: Bioreactors play a vital role in Tissue Engineering. While differing from common known bioreactors in the production industry, bioreactors in TE are used to influence, support or mimic certain physical or physiological processes [1]. The modular bioreactor system was developed to be a new device for the research and development of musculoskeletal tissue [2]. It is able to mimic the mechanical stress and the nervous stimulation occurring in the human body for a better growth and strength of the tissues [3]. While being a novel and universal device in this field of Tissue Engineering it comes with some disadvantages: The CCI can only control one bioreactor consisting of each one mechanical and one electrical stimulation module. Having in mind that the development of tissues can take months and contamination of one single tissue often results in an infection of all tissues in the bioreactor, the research can be very inefficient. Furthermore, the program running on the CCI was developed in the C programming language and is based on PIC microcontrollers. This makes it very hard to modify the code for attaching new sensors and other peripherals and thus creating a tailored device for every project. This paper describes a new approach of developing a new central control interface with a focal point on new hardware and programming systems to solve the current issues of the device. Methodology: The bioreactor system consists of three core parts: The central control interface (CCI), the mechanical stimulation module (MMS) and the electrical stimulation module (MES). The MMS consists of a six-well plate and a geared down stepper motor equipped with a lead screw. The cell constructs are located in the wells and are anchored to two posts next to each well. One post is moved by the stepper motor and thus stretches the tissue. A potentiometer working as a displacement sensor is fixed to the actuator base and measures the potential backlash occurring when the force resistance of the tissues grows. The MES consists of 12 electrodes and a circuit that provides the electrical stimulus and is mounted on top of the MMS. The CCI was developed to control and observe the stimulation [1]. In order to improve the extendability and modifiability, the hardware of the CCI was changed from PIC microcontrollers to a Raspberry Pi 3. With the new hardware running Raspbian Jessie operating system (Release: 2016-09-23) new possibilities for alternative programming systems are available: The application running on the CCI was completely developed using the graphical programming system LabVIEW with the LINX Add-On. The stimulation parameters for the modular bioreactor system were configured either through a PC software running on Windows or on the device itself. While the Raspberry Pi and LabVIEW both are adaptable for internet applications, a new approach for a platform independent User Interface