Figure 1

Schematic Diagram of Flexcell Tension PlusTM 4000T system. A computer driven system controls the pressure of vacuum, which pulls down the silastic membrane around loading post and implements the circumferential strain in cell culture growing on top of the loading post. During the course of dynamic cell growth, cyclic stretching was applied to silastic well bottoms of BioFlex plates to attain 5% surface elongation at the frequency of 0.2Hz, which corresponds to 45% of the total lung capacity similar to normal breathing condition in the lung.