An MIT engineer and his Italian colleagues have successfully invention a 3D scaffold that in a near future may replace the ubiquitous Petri dish for growing cells! A designer scaffold is developed from a network of protein nanofibers. Each nano-fiber is 5,000 times thinner compared to a human hair and contains pores up to 20,000 times smaller than the eye of a needle!
The researchers have successfully grown a healthy colony of stem cells of an adult mouse. They have grown the cells on the three-dimensional scaffold, which does not have the two-dimensional systems’ drawbacks.
This invention of the new synthetic structure does not only help researchers build a more accurate picture of how cells grow and behave in the body. It can also provide a more conducive microenvironment required for the tissue cell cultures and tissues that are used in regenerative medicine — like skin grafts or neurons. These are used to replace brain cells lost to injury or disease.
With no ill effects, the scaffold itself can be transplanted directly into the body!
