Continuing from the progress made in our project last year, we are building upon our previous work to further investigate the effectiveness of regulating various environmental variables to sustain organ life. Our primary goal this year is to enhance our understanding of how these variables interact and contribute to the survival and function of biological systems, particularly organs that rely on controlled conditions to remain viable over time.
To achieve this, we will be utilizing Escherichia coli (E. coli) as a model organism in our experiments. By introducing E. coli into our controlled environment, we aim to test the effectiveness of the box we developed last year, which is designed to maintain stable conditions such as temperature, flow, and now additional factors like pH and nutrient concentration.
In order to collect precise data on the environmental conditions inside our system, we will continue using PASCO probes, which have proven reliable for measuring critical variables such as temperature and flow rate. In addition to these established measurements, this year we are introducing new variables to monitor and control—specifically pH levels and nutrient concentrations.
By the end of this project, we plan to better understand the necessary requirements for living organisms in a controlled environment and gather data on how to apply this project to the real medical world.