Grant: CIHR Fellowship

The goal of this project is to create human patient-specific and functional ear, nose and trachea that can be surgically implanted as tissue replacements for patients with ear, nose and throat (ENT) defects. There is currently no optimal treatment for damaged cartilage tissues. The most common treatment strategy is the transplantation of healthy cartilage from another site in the patient's body to the defect site. This requires an invasive procedure that damages the donor site. Tissue engineering provides an alternative treatment option by making these cartilage tissues readily available for transplantation. The tissue engineering approach involves the cultivation of cells in the laboratory to grow tissues that can be transplanted into the body, once the proper functions of the tissues are attained. Tissue engineering of the ear, nose and trachea has been done previously, but challenges include the need for large numbers of cells and the unsatisfactory properties of the resulting engineered tissues. These challenges will be overcome in my proposed work here by two main strategies. First, the cells will be cultivated with nutrients constantly being pumped through the culture chamber. This approach is expected to lower the number of cells required and eliminate the need for a scaffolding material, since cells will grow and produce their own matrix at a faster rate. Second, the patient's defect site will be scanned to create patient-specific molds used for the engineering of the ear, nose and trachea tissues. This will produce aesthetically pleasing tissue replacements and ease the surgical procedure due to the use of molds and matching surgical guides. The results of this work will improve the functions of engineered cartilage tissues to match those of the native tissues, and ultimately lead to improved quality of life for patients with ENT conditions, thus benefiting both the field of cartilage tissue engineering and health care in Canada.