Organs the Human Body - By Glenn Cook
“The key is making sure the live cells can maintain their viability and organization when they are transferred,” Toomey says. “Part of what Kemi’s looking at and focusing on are the parameters you have to adjust and look at to adhere multiple different cell layers together. It’s a very complicated problem, but it’s very encouraging.” Akintewe says the process she’s working on now assembles fibroblasts, or skin cells in three dimensions. She took a short course on advanced tissue engineering at Rice University in 2011 and “got interested in working in that area.” “We’ve been able to stack them up to 50 microns or so right now, and once we can start printing them in more of a millimeter scale, then we’ll be able to engineer tissues for in vivo applications,” says Akintewe, who graduates from USF in August and has been awarded an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship for a position in the NHLBI-sponsored Multidisciplinary Research Training Program at the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute of the Boston University School of Medicine this fall. “Once we can do that, whether it’s bladder, ears, liver or heart tissues, then we have something viable that can be used on the patient.”
we’ll eventually be able to print a variety of different tissues.” Gallant is interested in seeing how the project can be applied in the cardiovascular field. He believes their work can be used to patch damaged heart muscles and incorporate blood vessels to improve vascular supply. “If we can get the muscle cells to contract in the right directions, we should be able to make a heart muscle tissue patch that we can apply directly to the surface of the heart or to replace a damaged muscle following a heart attack or infarction,” he says. “I think this also can be used to provide repairs to traumatic wounds that soldiers sustain in combat because we can create areas of skin or barrier-like tissues that will cover the wounds.”
Olukemi Akintewe
Gallant says the team is obtaining intellectual property rights on the cell printing process and the fabrication of the materials. They now are working to refine and finetune the process for building multilayered structures. Once that is complete, then animal testing, followed by human trials, can begin.
The researchers have discussed their work with medical research personnel from a nearby Air Force base, and received feedback on how it can be applied. While no formal collaboration has been set up, Gallant says they will look to work together in the future.
“This is a long-term project,” he says. “But it’s one that definitely offers some good opportunities to make a difference.”
“I think we’re a number of years away before it can be clinically applied,” Gallant says. “But we think
23