Lab-based produced vascularised tissue for in vitro lab on a chip models of healthy and diseased tissue

生物材料的一个重要研究方向是实验室生长器官的开发，这些器官越来越多地模仿人体器官的结构和生物复杂性。这些芯片上的器官越来越多地被开发为在药物测试中使用动物的替代品。然而，缺乏通过血管化的灌注仍然是生理组织芯片模型发展的障碍。目前使用微流体灌注的模型缺乏足够的规模和复杂性。离体组织切片培养也仅适用于非常短期的培养。该项目将利用内部开发的技术建立血管化组织的体外模型。该技术将原型血管网络纳入多孔材料中，并允许血管生长发生在基于水凝胶的井中，我们可以在其中放置细胞，细胞球体甚至小活检。我们将使用灌注生物反应器来研究支架内的血管生长，以获得可用于长期观察健康和患病组织模型中血管形成的芯片实验室设备。这将被开发为提供体内测试平台的体外替代方案，例如小鼠背部皮肤褶皱模型。1该体外模型将用于探索健康和患病组织模型的血管化。我们的目标是探索健康和癌症组织模型。如果成功，该设备将填补一个重要的未满足的需求，作为一个体外测试平台。

An important research strand in biomaterials is the development of in-lab grown organs, which are increasingly mimicking the structural and biological complexity of human organs. These organs-on-a-chip are increasingly developed as an alternative to the use of animals in pharmaceutical testing. However the lack of perfusion through vascularisation remains an obstacle in the development of physiological tissue-on-a-chip models. Current models using microfluidic perfusion lack sufficient scale and complexity. Ex-vivo tissue slice cultures are also only suitable for very short-term culture. The project will utilise in house developed technology to build an in vitro model of vascularised tissue. This technology incorporates a prototype vascular network in a porous material and allows for vascular outgrowth to occur in a hydrogel-based well where we can place cells, cell spheroids or even small biopsies. We will use perfusion bioreactors to study the vascular outgrowth within the scaffolds to obtain a lab-on-a-chip device that can be used for long term observation of vascularisation in healthy and diseased tissue models. This will be developed to present an in vitro alternative to in vivo testing platforms, such as the mouse dorsal skin fold model.1 This in vitro model will be used to explore the vascularisation of healthy and diseased tissue models. We aim to explore healthy and cancer tissue models. If successful, this device will fill an important unmet need as an in vitro testing platform.