https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlBioFit — Grown-to-Shape Bacterial Cellulose Prosthetics/orthotics Interface 1. What would I like to biomanufacture, and why? I want to biomanufacture a custom-fitted bacterial-cellulose inner interface for lower-limb prosthetic sockets/ knee braces and potentially other wearable orthopedic devices. Instead of manufacturing a flat sheet of material and then cutting, joining, stretching, or thermoforming it around the residual limb, the material would be grown directly around a digitally fabricated 3D former derived from the user’s residual-limb scan. The result would be a seamless, body-specific cellulose structure whose thickness, surface texture, porosity, and geometry could potentially be varied across different regions of the limb. This interests me primarily from a product-design and human-factors perspective. The interface between the residual limb and prosthetic socket is extremely demanding: it experiences pressure, shear, friction, heat, and moisture. These conditions contribute to irritation, blisters, dermatitis, pressure injuries and other skin problems. Heat and perspiration are also significant problems; a literature review found that more than 53% of people with amputations in the included studies experienced heat and/or perspiration discomfort inside their prostheses. . Not just from comfort but even from a functionality point of view , one of the most notable problems related to knee braces is brace migration and that clubs in with interface pressure, thermal comfort, airflow etc . Conventional silicon liners or EVA foam provide cushioning and suspension, but they can also trap heat and perspiration. Research on perforated liners suggests that deliberately controlling moisture pathways can improve residual-limb conditions. (PubMed) Orthopedic wearables have a difficult design problem: the device needs to apply forces to the body, but the interface needs to remain comfortable while doing so. For example, a knee brace may need to apply localized pressure to control movement or unload a joint, while simultaneously avoiding excessive pressure, friction, heat and discomfort. Similarly, prosthetic sockets have to transfer loads between a rigid device and soft biological tissue. That creates an interesting design opportunity for bacterial cellulose because I could potentially spatially engineer the material rather than treating the entire interface as one uniform piece..Hugoen