Usually, small wounds in our skin or muscles can heal on their own.
However, for deep wounds - such as those in diabetes patients or to muscle tissue after a heart attack - the healing process is more difficult. Deep wounds often require more serious treatment, and may eventually require amputation or transplantation if healing is not completed.
Although organ transplants can save lives, there is a shortage of organs available for this procedure. Therefore, an alternative method is needed.
Technologies such as bioprinting have been used to build fully functional organs outside the body. But what if we could increase our body's own regenerative ability (repair damaged cells)? Is it possible to manufacture organs in the body?
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Our recent publication shows that by simply injecting a gel extracted from edible seaweed, we can direct the body to stabilize blood vessels in the muscles. These blood vessels are the key to helping tissues to live.
These findings are an important step towards regenerative therapy based solely on biomaterials.
What is regenerative therapy?
Regenerative therapy (also known as regenerative medicine) is a research field that combines medicine, molecular biology, and biotechnology. Its purpose is to engineer tissues or organs and restore normal body function.
An example is, 3-dimensional bioprinting which succeeds in making the cornea implanted in the eye.
Unfortunately, this approach requires special manufacturing facilities. The cells must be isolated, cultivated in a bioreactor, which is a special container that provides the right environment for tissue growth. These cells are then used to make artificial organs under controlled and sterile conditions.
A new approach emerged a few years ago. This approach uses the body to produce certain types of tissue or cells, and is called an in vivo (in the body) bioreactor. This method was originally developed to make bone.
In order to make tissue in the human body, we need to trigger and harness our own regenerative abilities. Unfortunately though, humans aren't quite as good as salamanders at this: we can't regrow new limbs.
But with a little help, we can regenerate tissues individually. To achieve this, help can come in the form of materials that:
reproduces required tissue properties, such as tissue rigidity, and
carry chemical and biological signals that can direct tissue growth.
A network is defined as a group of cells that work together for a specific function. For example, muscle tissue is made of cells that are organized into fibers, forming what are called muscle fibers.
A material that can talk to cells
Our body tissues are made up of many different cell types, as well as materials that exist outside the cells. These materials are known as extracellular matrix (ECM).
ECM consists of several different elements. It holds water and also stores important information to help cells move, grow, and organize it into functional tissue.
We don't need to go into details about what ECM does here. However, we can say that scientists can copy many of its functions using a gel-like material called a hydrogel. This gel can be modified to pass specific biological information to cells.
Edible seaweed to make blood vessels
We have developed a new class of injectable hydrogels.
The ingredient for this hydrogel is agarose, which is also used to make jelly cakes in kitchens, and in biology laboratories to separate DNA.
Agarose is a polysaccharide - a long-chain sugar - that is extracted from red seaweed which is found in many oceans around the world.
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