Creating engineered tissues in lab is a difficult task. The problem seemed to have a solution in a recent discovery by researchers of the Cornell University. They have engineered micro-channels within a water-based gel that can act as a vascular system.
The gel-based vascular system can act as scaffolding for growing tissues. The scaffold can hold tens of millions of living cells per milliliter in a three dimensional arrangement. The solutes carried by the system could be changed to carry different nutrients, oxygen, sugar, proteins in different stages of the tissues’ generation. It is also possible to generate a tissue with divergent types of cells which need different nutrients.
The scientists designed the system so that it could be programmed to match different shapes and tissues would grow to fill the shape. The artificial vascular system acts both as a scaffold for the growing tissues as well as a nutrient delivery system.
However, it is now too early to develop complex organs but it makes artificial creation of a wide variety of tissues to be used as implants feasible.
Source: tfot.info
