Injectable Tissue Patch to Repair Organs

Repairing heart tissue destroyed by a heart attack or medical condition with regenerative cells or tissues usually requires invasive open-heart surgery. But now biomedical engineering Professor Milica Radisic and her colleagues have developed a technique that lets them use a small needle to inject a repair patch, without the need to open up the chest cavity.

Radisic's team are experts in using polymer scaffolds to grow realistic 3D slices of human tissue in the lab. One of their creations, AngioChip, is a tiny patch of heart tissue with its own blood vessels -- the heart cells even beat with a regular rhythm. Another one of their innovations snaps together like sheets of Velcro.

Such lab-grown tissues are already being used to test potential drug candidates for side effects, but the long-term goal is to implant them back into the body to repair damage.

"If an implant requires open-heart surgery, it's not going to be widely available to patients," Radisic said. She says that after a myocardial infarction -- a heart attack -- the heart's function is reduced so much that invasive procedures like open-heart surgery usually pose more risks than potential benefits. "It's just too dangerous," she said.

There is still a long way to go before the material is ready for clinical trials. Radisic and her team are collaborating with researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children to assess the long-term stability of the patches, as well as whether the improved cardiac function can be maintained.

Materials of the article were provided by University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and published in Science Daily.