Grant: Operating Grant

This project is focused on developing a functional tissue patch that can be delivered in a minimally invasive manner to the patient's body. Tissue engineering enables creation of living and functional tissues in the laboratory. However, a surgery is needed to place these tissues into an animal or a patient. This is a critical bottleneck to wide application of tissue engineering in a clinical setting. In this project we will use an innovative biomaterial design to create living tissues that can be applied into the body by injection. The concept is that the engineered functional tissue would possess the capability of deforming to fit through a small diameter needle and regain its original shape once injected. A requirement is that both the viability of cells and the functionality of tissue be maintained after the tissue opens-up at delivery. A potential application that we envision is placing this patch over an ischemic region of the heart to remuscularize and revascularize the injured heart to reduce overall damage from conditions such as heart attack. An optimal design has been identified with both shape-memory and anisotropic mechanical properties matching the rat myocardium. Beating heart cells have successfully been cultured on the scaffolds and injected through a 1mm orifice with minimal tissue damage. A novel bioadhesive has been synthesized that could be used to adhere a patch onto the surface of a heart. Success of the proposed research will be the first demonstration of a minimally invasive functional tissue delivery.