| RESEARCH
INTEREST
DIPOSE
TISSUE ENGINEERING IN BREAST RECONSTRUCTION USNIG NOVEL
BIO-HYDROGELS
FOR REHABILITATION OF CANCER AFFECTED BREASTS
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers
in women. Each year more than 200,000 American women face
the reality of breast cancer that often results in breast
removal causing tremendous psychological and social impact
on the victims. Cancer affected breasts can be rebuilt through
reconstructive surgery with attendant risks and complications.
The most common surgical remedy is the use of saline-filled
implant that has an external silicone shell. Silicone gel-filled
implant is another option for breast reconstruction. However,
diffusion of filled materials results in about 40% shrinkage
of reconstructed breast in a couple of years, necessitating
frequent follow-up surgeries. Adipose tissue engineering
has the potential to redefine rehabilitation for breast
cancer patients by restoring the post-mastectomy breast
mound via biopolymer based tissue construct. Biopolymer
constructs of choice are biodegradable, an advantage over
silicone implants. Numerous studies attest to the feasibility
of adipose tissue engineering. This emerging area of tissue
reconstruction is now poised to challenge barriers to clinical
applications that are critical issues involved in most tissue
engineering applications, such as scale-up, large-animal
model development and vascularization. Innovative soft tissue
replacement technologies developed in the Adipo-Regeneration
project offer new hope for breast reconstruction. Our tissue
engineering laboratory at CAU has successfully generated
micro-blood vessels using biodegradable and biocompatible
polymers. We will use our expertise in biopolymers and tissue
engineering to study reconstruction of cancer affected breast
tissue. We propose to use novel biodegradable and biocompatible
hydrogels (chitosan), to study in vitro modeling
of adipose tissue for in vivo breast reconstruction.
However, we will continue our search for further novel polymer
hydrogels for better growth and proleratifion of adipose
tissue.
Our
in vitro studies will include:
•
the proliferation of adipocytes in 3D polymer constructs
(made of chitosan hydrogel and other novel polymer hydrogels)
in tissue culture,
•
3D modeling of adipocytes and fibroblasts in polymer constructs,
•
angiogenesis in 3D polymer constructs in culture.
Ultimately,
our in vivo studies will comprise of
•
extraction of mesenchymal stem cells from the bone marrow
of the breast cancer patient. These “master cells” grow
into various cell types including bone cartilage and fat
cells,
- coaxing of
the master cells to develop mostly adipose cells by creating
necessary environment mimicking the conditions of the
body,
- fabrication
of biodegradable polymer scaffolds, pre-seeding of the
scaffolds with preadipocytes (PA), and subcutaneous implantation
of the scaffolds in rats/mice (later in pig models and
finally in breast cancer patients) for 1-12 months,
- study of the
mechanisms and adhesion molecules involved in PA-material
interactions,
- quantitative
histometric analysis to assess the development and orientation
of the tissue.
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