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Nov.
11, 2002 |
Building Better Body Parts
Jan Stegemann is a biological architect of sorts.
The Rensselaer assistant professor of biomedical engineering is
building better three-dimensional scaffolds of naturally derived
polymers in order to create bioengineered tissues capable of replacing
damaged body parts (such as blood vessels) or, eventually, entire
organs (such as the pancreas and liver).
| Thomas Griffin |
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Polymers that exist in nature, such as agarose,
alginate, collagen, and fibrin, have been used widely in tissue
engineering applications. A more complete understanding of the
structure of these different matrices, how they interact with
cells, and how they affect cell function would benefit a variety
of fields in biotechnology.
"You must first have the proper scaffold
or foundation or the entire structure will be affected,"
says Stegemann, who spent five years at Grace Biomedical in Massachusetts
developing cell-based bioartificial organs. "We are working
to understand and build foundations that will lead to fully functional
tissues."
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Stegemann is mimicking the complex set of
biochemical and mechanical signals that affect cell function
in the body. Using the right combination of signals, he can
control cell function to better engineer tissue.
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Stegemann is mimicking the complex set of biochemical
and mechanical signals that affect cell function in the body.
Using the right combination of signals, he can control cell function
to better engineer tissue.
He is developing a blood vessel composed of isolated
vascular smooth muscle cells embedded in a matrix of collagen
and fibrin to study how the functions of cells change when they
are removed from their native environment. Defining these extracellular
environments can help in understanding the mechanisms that lead
to vascular diseases--such as atherosclerosis and hypertension--and
can prevent or reverse the disease.
"The ability to control cell function is a key issue in functional
tissue engineering," says Stegemann. "This is necessary
to promote appropriate tissue development outside the body (in
vitro), and to ensure physiological tissue function within the
body (in vivo). It is hoped that, in the future, these engineered
tissues will be implanted and will immediately take over the function
of diseased or damaged tissue without graft rejection or failure."
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