Virginia Commonwealth University: Engineered Tissue Multiscale Mechanics and Modelling (ETM3)
Published on May 20, 2022
Customer Application
The fabrication of grafts made from living tissue is called tissue engineering, and its application to blood vessels could be the solution to managing cardiovascular disease. One technique used to create engineered tissue vascular grafts consists of seeding and culturing living cells on tubular biodegradable synthetic scaffolds. It has been proven that cyclic mechanical stimulation during culture improves the performance of engineered tissue vascular grafts in vivo. Using Zaber NA08B30-T4 linear actuator kits we are able to induce precise axial stretch onto cell-seeded scaffolds. This allows us to observe and quantify the effect of different mechanical stimulation regimes on the in vitro and in vivo performance of engineered tissue vascular grafts.
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About ETM3 Laboratory
Tissue engineering is a high impact area that contains a rich variety of problems ranging from the bulk-scale mechanics at the organ- and tissue-levels, down to the cell- and molecular-scales of systems biology. The Engineered Tissue Multiscale Mechanics & Modeling (ETM3) Laboratory aims to develop highly-integrative experimental-computational approaches for cardiovascular tissue engineering, in particular, for small-caliber engineered tissue vascular grafts for coronary artery bypass surgery and epicardial restraint patches for myocardium support after infarction. The ETM3 research approach is based on 3 interconnected components:
- theoretical advancement and model development of dense connective tissue formation
- computational modeling and in silico simulation at multiple scales (cellular-, tissue-, and implant-level)
- pinpointed experimental research for material characterization and model validation
Visit the EMTS Laboratory at https://etm3.egr.vcu.edu/