Presents the Friday Keck Center Teleconference*
Biomimetic Strategies in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
Jennifer L. West, Ph.D.,
Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering, Rice University
4:00 pm Friday
Feb. 1st , 2008
(Refreshments at 3:45)
5.521 Levin Hall
Abstract: Efforts in tissue engineering seek to address the tremendous shortage of donor tissues for transplantation procedures. Small diameter vascular graft applications could particularly benefit from tissue engineering. Most approaches have used small samples of cells from the patient that are expanded in culture then seeded onto a scaffold material that defines the size and shape of the new tissue and provides mechanical support for the cells as they divide and synthesize new extracellular matrix (ECM). As scaffolds, investigators have generally chosen either synthetic polymers such as polylactic acid or ECM proteins such as collagen. Synthetic polymers offer better control and manipulation of material properties, ease of processing and generally better safety. Unfortunately, cell-material interactions are based on protein adsorption events and thus largely uncontrolled and somewhat variable, while ECM proteins, on the other hand, have very specific cellular interactions that can facilitate tissue formation. In order to develop scaffolds that would offer the benefits of synthetic polymers but also have specific and controlled cell-material interactions, my laboratory has developed bioactive scaffolds that can mimic some of the functions of the ECM, including proteolytic degradation, biospecific cell adhesion and presentation of growth factors. Genetic modification of the cells used to form the engineered tissues provides additional improvements. For example, vascular smooth muscle cells have been transfected to express endothelial nitric oxide synthase to improve thromboresistance or lysyl oxidase to improve tissue mechanical properties. Finally, the cell-material constructs are cultured in pulsatile flow bioreactors to mimic in vivo mechanical conditions to further improve tissue quality. ( http://westlab.rice.edu/ )
