Grant: Operating Grant

Peripheral arterial disease occurs when blood flow to the limbs is damaged or blocked. Limited native vessels are available for substitutes as peripheral arterial blood vessels to address the increasing needs of patients with poly-vasculopathy, in an aging population with increased type II diabetes (in 2009, the estimated prevalence of diabetes in Canada was 6.8%, and by 2019 this will grow to 3.7 million Canadians). Vascular bypass remains a critical intervention to the repair of diseased blood vessels, where the need for coronary artery replacements remains elevated in Canada and in the world. A person with peripheral vascular disease is 2-6 times more likely to die from a heart attack or have a stroke than a person without peripheral vascular disease. The principal investigators have synthesized a degradable polymer that is non-toxic to human blood vessel cells, produces low-inflammation and good wound healing characteristics, and yields healthy connective tissue integration within the material. In in vivo animal studies they have shown that the material rapidly generates new micro-blood vessels within the tissue. This current grant will define the mechanism by which this material achieves these properties and will take advantage of this knowledge to establish the fabrication methods to generate replacement peripheral blood vessels for the defined patient cohort. The research will establish the methods needed to induce stem cells towards the cell types that will generate blood vessels with the new biomaterial, and the work will be validated with animal models. The research will impact peripheral vascular disease by introducing a new approach to generating life-saving by-pass vessels.