Keynote speaker: An engineered microenvironment for manipulating cells in tissue regeneration: A way towards the development of bioartificial organs using mesenchymal stem cell

Stem cells are cells that exist in all organisms that have the ability to divide and give rise to more stem cells, or switch to become more specialized cells in human. Because of their self-renewal capacity and pluripotency, stem cells become driving force in functional tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, the number of stem cells can be isolated from the source are really limited. So far, many researchers have focused on material of scaffold, designing the chemical, mechanical cues as inducer, and designing bioreactor to enhance the stem cells proliferation. However, growth factors are widely used in this area and the cost is expensive. In this study, we investigated the effect of burst of high frequency of electromagnetic wave on the human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) proliferation. The hUC-MSCs were obtained after full-term pregnancy delivered using our own method. The hUC-MSCs (1.0 × 105) at the fourth passage as seeded in the culture dish were then exposed 300 second to the 6.73 kHz waveform. As a result, the cell proliferation rate for the hUC-MSCs after 120 hours exposed to the 6.73kHz electromagnetic wave was 107% (p < 0.01) higher than control for suspension induction and 32% (p < 0.01) for monolayer induction. A simulation based on the mathematical model indicates that the exposed cells were not differentiated. The effect of burst of high frequency of electromagnetic wave on the hUC-MSCs cell cycle and surface markers will also be discussed.