Abstract

Vascular and Myocardial Patches Using Cell Sheet Technology

Joyce Wong, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

A major challenge in vascular tissue engineering has been the ability to preserve the organization of native vessels in engineered tissues. We hypothesize that the structural organization of cells and extracellular matrix are critical for achieving functional mechanical properties of the tissue. In addition, our studies have demonstrated that cell phenotype is modulated by physiochemical properties of the underlying substrate. We have developed several methods to generate cell sheets that can be micropatterned and stacked in desired orientations. In addition, we have recently designed and fabricated a novel tissue stretching device that can measure the mechanical properties of single cell sheets. To our knowledge, the ability to test the mechanics of single cell sheets has not been reported yet; this will be important for computational models we are developing to aid in vascular tissue engineering. We will also discuss a novel cell source for myocardial patches and a bioMEMS device that can be used to assess how well specific cell sources perform in terms of physiological function under conditions relevant for patient implantation.