I-Corps: Nipple regeneration for breast cancer survivors

该I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种工艺技术，为患者提供天然色素供体皮肤支架（同种异体移植物），用于从手术，烧伤和其他需要组织再生的手术中恢复。 天然支架的可用性有助于改善患者的生理结果，使用类似的色素沉着可以改善与接受者现有皮肤的自然整合，缓解他们的情绪恢复和自我形象。 在包括乳房重建在内的手术中，对这种工程同种异体移植物的需求越来越大。在美国，乳腺癌的发病率一直在迅速上升。此外，在过去几十年中，妇女为了预防措施而接受双乳切除术的趋势越来越明显，即使只在一个乳房中检测到乳腺癌。这种手术需要完全重建双侧乳房。在2015年，有176，308例乳房再造，预计这一数字将继续上升。这项工艺技术将有助于通过改进支架的生产来满足部分需求，并可能导致新的方法，通过这种方法，计划手术的个人可以将自己的组织处理并在手术中重复使用（自体移植）。这个I-Corps项目将开发一种来自人类乳头乳晕复合体组织的乳头再生支架。目前，乳房重建中所需的乳头重建的最佳选择是切割和修复乳房上的皮肤，以创建一个疤痕丘，随后进行纹身，以获得重建乳头外观的所需色素沉着。 不幸的是，这种方法由于下面组织的收缩力和疤痕组织的收缩而导致乳头变平。与目前的重建方法不同，我们的工程工艺技术不仅可以重建乳头的外观，还可以让患者用自己的细胞制作一个支架来帮助乳头再生。我们正在开发的部分支架处理已经在实验室环境中得到了证明。 该技术的优点包括当支架用来自患者的细胞重新填充时改善的细胞增殖、分化和迁移。当工程化组织支架用于再生医学应用时，高度期望保持天然组织组成，并且最近的研究已经证明，当这样的支架衍生自位点特异性同源组织时，发生上级功能和复杂组织形成。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a process technology that provides patients with a naturally pigmented donor skin scaffold (allograft) for recovery from surgeries, burns, and other procedures that require tissue regeneration. The availability of a natural scaffold helps improve patient physiological outcomes, and the use of similar pigmentation can improve natural integration with the recipient's existing skin, easing their emotional recovery and self-image. There is a growing demand for such engineered allografts in surgeries, including breast reconstruction. The incidence of breast cancer diagnosis has been increasing rapidly in the united states. Furthermore, the last few decades have seen an increasing trend for women to undergo a double mastectomy for preventative measures, even if breast cancer was only detected in one breast. Such procedures require complete reconstruction of both breasts. In 2015, there were 176,308 breast reconstructions and this number is expected to continue rising. This process technology will help meet some of this demand by improving the production of scaffolds, and may lead to new methods by which individuals planning surgeries can have their own tissue processed and reused in their procedures (autograft).This I-Corps project will develop a scaffold for nipple regeneration derived from human nipple areolar complex tissue. Currently, the best option for nipple reconstruction required in breast reconstruction is cutting and suturing the skin on the breast to create a scar mound with a subsequent tattoo for desired pigmentation that recreates the appearance of a nipple. Unfortunately, this method results in nipple flattening due to retraction forces of the underlying tissue and contraction of scar tissue. Instead of just recreating the appearance of a nipple, like current reconstruction methods, our engineering process technology allows the patient to have a scaffold assist in the regeneration of a nipple made from her own cells. Portions of the scaffold processing we are developing have been demonstrated in a laboratory setting. Advantages of this technology include improved cell proliferation, differentiation, and migration when the scaffold is repopulated with cells from the patient. It is highly desirable to maintain native tissue composition when engineering tissue scaffolds for regenerative medicine applications, and recent studies have demonstrated that superior function and complex tissue formation occurred when such scaffolds were derived from site-specific homologous tissues.