Experimental Validation of the Model

We studied two types of cells: one was derived from the bovine auricular cartilage, and the other cell type was derived from the human dermal fibroblasts. The two cell types have similar characteristics as far as the production of ECM is concerned. TODO: Doreen, please add more here. The purpose of using two cell-types was to see how coefficient $\alpha$ differs for the two cell types. The constant growth rate $\alpha$ is the predominantly determined by the type of cells studied.

Next we expolored how different artificial surfaces affect the dynamics of cell proliferation and matrix accumulation. We used human dermal fibroblasts and seeded them on a tc treated polystyrene, and on an aluminum foil. Each condition was run in triplicate an the cell growth was monitored for over 9 days. We were able to unequivocally establish that the cells proliferate much more readily on polystyrene than on aluminum foil. We found out that this behavior is captured in our model by the quotient $\gamma/\delta$ which denoted the artificial surface-dependent proliferation rate.