Biomedical Breakthrough: Blood Vessels for Lab-Grown Tissues
ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2011)
According to the lead co-author Jennifer West, department chair and the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering at Rice, the leading setback or problem in advances in regenerative medicine and tissue growth is often the difficulty and inability to form vasculature or grow a culture of lab grown tissues to create blood supply for a tissue structure. Without a substantial blood supply it is impossible to create a structure more than several microns thick.
The recent breakthrough found from researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine enabled use of polyethylene glycol to simulate the body's extracellular matrix, the structure that is made of a network of proteins and polysaccharides, the basis of most tissues.
Using light to form the PEG strands into hydrogels, combining them with living cells and growth factors, they were marked with color and were able to see the cells slowly form capillaries. This ability to form vasculature and increase blood supply has potentially increased the use of lab grown tissue. This has also lead to increased research in determining a specific vascular path, or "predetermined patterns".
This article interested me after my internship this past summer. Working with a company that part of their research involves regenerative cell tissue, and tissue engineering, specifically for breast regeneration. Using a tissue matrix with either human harvested skin cells or porcine(pig skin), the limitations on the amount can be growth is often due to the vascular nature of the lab growth tissue and lack of blood supply. Breakthrough like the use of these PEG strands, can be applicable to many tissue engineering opportunities and will continue to further the use of lab grown tissue in ways that will produce greater outcomes for patients.
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112080910.htm
According to the lead co-author Jennifer West, department chair and the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering at Rice, the leading setback or problem in advances in regenerative medicine and tissue growth is often the difficulty and inability to form vasculature or grow a culture of lab grown tissues to create blood supply for a tissue structure. Without a substantial blood supply it is impossible to create a structure more than several microns thick.
The recent breakthrough found from researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine enabled use of polyethylene glycol to simulate the body's extracellular matrix, the structure that is made of a network of proteins and polysaccharides, the basis of most tissues.
Using light to form the PEG strands into hydrogels, combining them with living cells and growth factors, they were marked with color and were able to see the cells slowly form capillaries. This ability to form vasculature and increase blood supply has potentially increased the use of lab grown tissue. This has also lead to increased research in determining a specific vascular path, or "predetermined patterns".
This article interested me after my internship this past summer. Working with a company that part of their research involves regenerative cell tissue, and tissue engineering, specifically for breast regeneration. Using a tissue matrix with either human harvested skin cells or porcine(pig skin), the limitations on the amount can be growth is often due to the vascular nature of the lab growth tissue and lack of blood supply. Breakthrough like the use of these PEG strands, can be applicable to many tissue engineering opportunities and will continue to further the use of lab grown tissue in ways that will produce greater outcomes for patients.
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112080910.htm
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