Donut-shaped Cultured Muscle Actuator with an Outer Frame

In recent years, many studies have been conducted on engineering cultured muscle actuators that utilize muscle cell's contraction force. Cultured muscle actuators have unique advantages such as self-healing and high energy efficiency, but one of the challenges is that it is difficult to obtain sufficient contraction force. We have fabricated a donut-shaped actuator that contracts pores and improves contractility by controlling the orientation of muscle fibers in culturing muscle cells. However, when cells are seeded at high concentrations, they aggregate, making it impossible to maintain the actuator shape. In this study, an actuator was fabricated by placing the outer frame around the actuator to prevent aggregation. In addition, the contraction rate was measured by electrical stimulation. Based on the above, this study aims to investigate the cell seeding concentration and fabricate a cultured muscle actuator with higher contractility.