The production of artificial organs is a hot research topic. In the near future, artificial organs will compensate for the lack of organ donations and replace animal experiments. Although there are already promising experiments with 3D printers that use a „bio-ink“ containing living cells, a functional organ has never been created in this way. A European consortium coordinated by Dr Elena…
The future of medicine is biological – and scientists hope we will soon be using 3D-printed biologically functional tissue to replace irreparably damaged tissue in the body. A team of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has been working with the University of Stuttgart for a number of years on a project to develop and optimize suitable…
A team of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers led by Bioengineering Professor Stephen Boppart has successfully visualized the tumor microenvironment of human breast tissue shortly after it was surgically removed from a patient in the operating room. The researchers achieved this using a new portable optical imaging system developed in Boppart's lab.
Researchers have developed laser-activated nanomaterials that integrate with wounded tissues to form seals that are superior to sutures for containing body fluids and preventing bacterial infection. Tissue repair following injury or during surgery is conventionally performed with sutures and staples, which can cause tissue damage and complications, including infection. Glues and adhesives have…
Scientists have developed a new bone engineering technique called Segmental Additive Tissue Engineering (SATE). The technique allows researchers to combine segments of bone engineered from stem cells to create large scale, personalized grafts that will enhance treatment for those suffering from bone disease or injury through regenerative medicine.
To date, examining patient tissue samples has meant cutting them into thin slices for histological analysis. This might now be set to change – thanks to a new staining method devised by an interdisciplinary team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM). This allows specialists to investigate three-dimensional tissue samples using the Nano-CT system also recently developed at TUM. Tissue…
A new Michigan State University study is helping to answer a pressing question among scientists of just how close mice are to people when it comes to researching cancer. The findings, now published in PLOS Genetics, reveal how mice can actually mimic human breast cancer tissue and its genes, even more so than previously thought, as well as other cancers including lung, oral and esophagus.…
Tissue engineering, broadly described as the combination of cells, engineering methods and biochemical factors to create living biological tissue, is a fast-growing field that has the potential to significantly accelerate the advancement of medicine. In IDTechEx’s new report, Tissue Engineering 2018 – 2028: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts, the market for engineered living tissues is…
In old age a variety of cellular processes decline and the risk to develop age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Diabetes increases dramatically. But does ageing affect all organs and tissues in the body in the same way? And should drugs that are developed to improve health in old age have the same effect on every organ? Now scientists from the Max Planck Institute for…
Scientists in the United Kingdom are investigating the potential of a new regenerative and tissue engineering technique that could transform veins into arteries to improve the outcomes for patients undergoing heart bypass surgery.
Many women are turning to egg freezing to promote fertility, but what happens when it isn't an option because of special medical or other conditions? And, what option is there for women who want to preserve hormonal function, not just fertility?
High doses of vitamin D taken one hour after sunburn significantly reduce skin redness, swelling, and inflammation, according to double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.
Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR have engineered a three-dimensional heart tissue from human stem cells to test the safety and efficacy of new drugs on the heart.
Current view is that cancer development is initiated from cells that acquire initial DNA mutations. These in turn provoke additional defects, and ultimately the affected cells begin to proliferate in an uncontrolled manner to develop primary tumors. These can later spread and create metastases, or secondary tumors, in other parts of the body. However, according to a study by researchers at the…
A newly developed tissue scanner allows looking under the skin of psoriasis patients. This provides clinically relevant information, such as the structure of skin layers and blood vessels, without the need for contrast agents or radiation exposure. A team of researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) recently introduced the technology in ‘Nature…
Visiopharm A/S announces the first result of their multifaceted strategy to apply Deep Learning technologies to its leading image analysis solution for cancer research and diagnostics. Visiopharm considers Deep Learning an important technological breakthrough for tissue pathology that offers the potential to make a real difference in the assessment of tissue structures, which is probably one of…
A team of researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy has managed to generate cartilage tissue by printing stem cells using a 3D-bioprinter. The fact that the stem cells survived being printed in this manner is a success in itself. In addition, the research team was able to influence the cells to multiply and differentiate to form chondrocytes (cartilage cells) in the printed structure.
By definition, biobanks are collections of specimens of human bodily substances, such as tissue, cells, DNA, proteins, blood or other fluids, with data on the donor attached.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center grew functional stomach and intestinal tissues to study diseases and new drugs. They use pluripotent stem cells to generate human stomach tissues in a petri dish that produce acid and digestive enzymes.
Neural stem cells have been found in epileptic brain tissue - outside the regions of the brain where they normally reside. In a group of patients who underwent surgery for epilepsy, over half had stem cells where healthy individuals do not have them, according to a study from Sahlgrenska Academy.
21st century technology has outpaced our expectations. One such example is the invention of advanced digital manufacturing techniques, better known as 3-D printing. Patients and the medical community are yet to see the full implementation of this technology within healthcare.
‘Amputation v. reconstruction’ – a vital issue – was debated by two leading surgeons during the Microsurgical Lower Limb Reconstruction session at the Advances and Controversies in Reconstructive Microsurgery (ACRM) 2016 conference, held in the United Kingdom this May. Consultant Plastic Surgeon Umraz Khan, from North Bristol NHS Trust presented a plastic surgeon’s view, while Ben…
Curetis N.V. announced the successful completion of the CE Performance Evaluation study of the next generation of its Unyvero ITI Implant and Tissue Infection Application Cartridge (Unyvero ITI).
The MALDI Tissuetyper is a system that records spatially resolved mass spectra directly from tissue. This allows the direct measurement of proteins, lipids and other molecular classes without the need for antibodies or molecular probes. This results in highly multiplexed datasets in which hundreds or thousands of compounds are measured simultaneously.
A new technique developed by Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia Engineering and professor of medical sciences (in Medicine) at Columbia University, repairs large bone defects in the head and face by using lab-grown living bone, tailored to the patient and the defect being treated. This is the first time researchers have grown living…