Blood vessels engineering results

The third International Dendrimer Symposium took place at Berlin Technical University in 2003. Interdisciplinary lectures demonstrated the extent to which dendritic molecules branch ouf into other areas of science, such as physics, biology, medicine, and engineering. The possibilities of functionalisation and resulting applications in industry were at the focus of this symposium. For example, nano-dimensioned dendrimer-based contrast agents were presented as multilabels for visualisation of blood vessels (see Chapter 8). Potential applications of dendritic materials as luminescence markers in diagnostics attracted lively interest (see Chapter 8). Consideration of the differences between dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers from the viewpoint of their cost-favourable application was also a topic of discussion [18]. 

Niklason and Langer studied the feasibility of using PLGA and PGA for tissue-engineered, small diameter blood vessels. They reported that PLGA films supported confluent monolayers of aortic smooth muscle and endothelial cells, and PGA mesh scaffolds developed a tissue-like appearance when seeded with aortic smooth muscle cells. They also claimed that PGA scaffolds formed into a tube did not maintain sufficient strength required for blood vessels, even with smooth muscle tissue formed on the polymer. In an effort to improve the results, they applied pulsatile stretch forces to the cell-polymer... 

Although the above study involved in vivo tests over a period of only 1 month, the results are encouraging and demonstrate the usefulness of the two polymers used and that of the electrospun structures produced in engineering blood vessels. Obviously, a longer term study will be needed in order to understand what happens to the structure when the polymers start to degrade significantly and the effect of the cellular activity that occurs within it. 

Major advances are being made in the field of cardiac TE. So far, it is possible to engineer all the components of the cardiovascular system including blood vessels, heart valves, and cardiac muscle by using bioresorbable polymers. Regarding cardiac muscle repair, this chapter has reviewed how bioresorbable polymers administered either alone or as delivery vehicles have shown positive results such as cardiac function improvement, infarct size reduction, and increase in neovascularization in precUnical studies. 

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