Experimental Workflow

Our first objective involves the 3D printing of the stents, which are currently printed flat on the bed and welded together using a 3D printing pen. This brings us to our first subproject, which is to optimize the stent design, and parameters, as well as the printing workflow to make it more efficient

Since the stents are made of a biodegradable polymer, it is essential to understand how the stents will perfrom overtime as they degrade. As a result, our second subproject is focused on the degradation and mechanical testing of the stents. For the degradation portion, after a one time sodium hydroxide treatment, the stents are immersed in Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) to simulate physiological fluids and degrade in-vitro. Next, to understand how the stents mechanically perform as they degrade overtime, the degrading stents undergo mechanical testing at different timepoints during the degradation timeline. Two types of mechanical tests are performed, namely radial compression and point compression.

Our last objective is focused on the delivery system of  the stents. These need to be delivered to the tracheal of the children in a non-invasive manner, and it must be time-efficient and accurate. This brings us to our third subproject, which involves the design of a unique deployment system for our polymer-based stents, as well as the building of the prototype and the in-vitro testing.