Results from testing the accommodation system indicated that the physis had 13% less live cells after 7 days in culture. This may indicate that the accommodation system had failed to keep the tissue alive for 7 days. However, there were signs in the data that indicated that the results were not accurate. The first sign was that only 63% of the chondrocytes were alive immediately after extraction. This amount was much lower than the expected 90% of live chondrocytes since the calf distal ulna was dissected when it was fresh. Multiple errors could have caused the low initial percentage of live cells. One possible source of error comes from the extraction process. Errors in extraction could have killed the cells in the tissue before they were imaged. Another possible source of error comes from imaging: imaging at the surface of the tissue could result in an artificially large amount of dead cells as the blade cutting the tissue during sectioning would kill cells along its path.

A second sign that the result may not be accurate lies in the images that were takes to count the live and dead chondrocytes. In images (A) and (B) in Figure 5, bright dots indicating live or dead cells respectively can be seen. However, in images (C) and (D) in Figure 5, the bright dots are much harder to view and appear to be largely concentrated in what appears to be folds in the tissue. A possible reason for this result is that the tissue had been contaminated and the chondrocytes could have lysed, preventing the assay from showing live and dead cells throughout the tissue. While the ImageJ software was still able to provide cell counts, the counts for tissues cultured for 7 days could not be verified visually and may be inaccurate.

Due to these sources of inaccuracy, the results from testing the accommodation system are inconclusive. Additional testing that corrects the errors listed above must be completed in order to identify if the accommodation system functions as intended.

After testing the mechanical loading system, asymmetric compression of physeal tissue was successful; a sizably larger displacement was observed on the loaded side of the physis slice. Since the growth of the physis is stunted by the application of force²⁵, less growth on the loaded side of the tissue than on the unloaded side could potentially be observed when placed in the bioreactor. This could then result in the curvature of the physeal tissue, which would mirror a pathology observed in children where the physis is curved after damage to the tissue that results in angular deformity²⁶. Future testing will be centered around incorporating the mechanical system into the bioreactor to observe growth of physeal tissue under compression. The results from these future experiments should be compared to values in literature to ensure the desired stunting of growth is observed.

The visualization and chemical modulation systems were designed but were not developed or tested. Moving forward, the visualization system should be developed with a small prism and using microscopes using objective lenses with long working distances so that the focal point lies on the surface of the sample and not somewhere in between. This would ensure that the sample is in focus and can be imaged. Additionally, the chemical modulation components need to be tested so that actual boundary conditions can be determined. Furthermore, using a completed chemical modulation system, additional experimentation focused on the effect of growth factors on physeal tissue could be performed.