Tissue Engineering The Growing Field of Cell Manufacturing Sierra Obi BME 181 February 24, 2013

Healthcare Needs An estimated 900,000 cases of traumatic injury to the articular cartilage that occur annually. About 800,000 patients in the U.S. hospitalized annually with severe bone fractures 117,174Waiting List candidates for organs in the United States ▫ 74,496 are active candidates

What is Tissue Engineering? Evolving multidisciplinary field that combines aspects of biology, engineering, and medicine

Uses Testing drug ▫ Metabolism and uptake ▫ Toxicity ▫ pathogenicity Allows people to make models of different tissues of the body and study how viruses, diseases and other abnormities affect the body

Focuses of Tissue Engineering Areas of research ▫ Biological Packaging ▫ Differentiation of Cells ▫ Stem cells Branches of tissue engineering ▫ Mimicking ▫ Regeneration ▫ Replacement

How Tissue Engineering Works Start with some type of building material creates the scaffolding for the new tissue Living cells are put into the scaffold New tissue attaches itself to blood vessels and blends in with the surrounding area

Induced-Pluripotent Stem Cells Lookalikes of the embryonic stem cells Japanese Engineers first to create ▫ Using teeth pulp extracted from wisdom teeth, induced-pluripotent stem cells were able to be generated Can be made from skin cells Used to mimic tissue to test drugs and diseases

Replacement Development of tissues to mimic cells for to replace damaged tissue Commonly used to treat burn victims ▫ New tissue used to replace damaged skin

Regeneration Development of regenerative therapies Help develop ways to heal ▫ smashed bones ▫ Treat blood vessels in dialysis patients In the clinical trial stages ▫ Testing them in animals

Obstacles Challenges current Tissue Engineers are facing

Setbacks in the Field A patient’s immune system may reject the stem cells from donated embryos Adult stem cells or IPSCs could solve this problem since the cells were taken from the patient ▫ Less flexible than embryonic cells ▫ Harder to manipulate IPSCs are too new for transplantations to be successful For implantable organs, the tissues need blood vessels that can connect to the patient’s own

Controversy Has driven a wedge into the decision either to continue or to terminate research in the field Question at the center of the issue, Where does life begin?

Current Research New Developments in the Field

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Focuses on creating tissue models Professor Bhatia ▫ Developed the first stem-cell-derived liver tissue model. ▫ Created slices of human liver tissue that can be implanted in mice ▫ researchers recently developed 3-D liver tissues that include their own network of blood vessels with Christopher Chen of the University of Pennsylvania

The red circle is a cross-section of the vessel, and endothelial cells (red) sprout from the surface of the tube.

Future of Tissue Engineering Replicating an entire ecosystem of the body to test how taking different drugs might affect Personalized drugs for each person Regenerating new organs Using cells to repair other organs inside of the body Remove the need for anti-rejection drugs Eventually eradicate need for animal testing

Sources ▫ ▫ stem-cells-not-as-genetically-unstable-as-previously-thought.aspx ▫ ▫ Environ/Projects00/tissue/What%20is%20Tissue%20Engineering.htm ▫ engineering-growing-organs-1214.html ▫ an_personalized_medicine.html