Grant: Operating Grant

The proposed research program involves the development of an engineered fat tissue substitute for use in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Injury to the fatty tissues underlying the skin results in scar tissue formation, which causes deformity and can limit patient mobility. The research team will develop new tissue substitutes for soft tissue reconstruction, including breast reconstruction following tumour removal, the correction of birth defects, and soft tissue repair following trauma, to improve patient quality of life. The long-term objective is to minimize scar tissue formation, while promoting the natural regeneration of the patient's own healthy tissues, to fully restore the natural shape and volume of the damaged tissues. One common strategy is to design a scaffold that defines the desired tissue shape, and to seed it with cells that can promote regeneration, such as stem cells. In the proposed research, the team will investigate stem cells isolated from fat, termed adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs), within a variety of naturally-derived scaffolds. Previous research has helped to identify some of the key scaffold properties that impact the ability of the stem cells to grow and differentiate into mature fat cells. While these studies have shown the promise of a cell-seeded scaffold approach, the ideal tissue substitute for safe, predictable, and long-term large volume soft tissue augmentation has not yet been realized. There is a significant need to develop a much deeper understanding of how stem cells respond within different scaffold environments in order to rationally design soft tissue substitutes. The proposed research will make significant progress towards identifying and optimizing the key scaffold properties that regulate fat formation, to engineer optimized tissue substitutes for use in reconstructive surgery.