Fabrication and Evaluation of Poly(glycerol sebacate) based small diameter vascular graft as a potent substitution for autologous vessels

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Cardiovascular diseases are recognized as the main cause of mortality rate globally. They originate from narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. Decreasing blood flow could disrupt blood circulation performance and cause myocardial infarction, arterial disease and thrombosis, and tissue damage. Many therapeutic strategies have been applied from medications to angioplasty, stent insertion, or grafting autologous arteries or veins. Vascular bypass grafting is often employed, however is often a lack of suitable, good quality vasculature to sue as an autologous graft. Consequently, the importance of widening research in synthetic polymeric grafts is irrefutable. Commercial synthetic large-diameter products fabricated from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, Teflon) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET, Dacron), are already on the market, but are not a suitable candidate for small-diameter grafts. Due to their improper compliance and elasticity, they are prone to intimal hyperplasia. Hence, research has focussed on the engineering of small-diameter vessel tissues over the last few years. The aim of the project is to design and fabricate a cost-effective and off-the-shelf small-diameter vascular graft to potentially mimic the natural vessel. Poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) is a good choice for small-diameter vessel tissue engineering because of its tuneable mechanical properties, elasticity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, hemocompatibility, inexpensiveness, and transparency. This project hypothesizes that a more durable PGS derivatives could support smooth muscle cells and the addition of some groups like methacrylate, and polycarbonate polyols could control the mechanical strength and biodegradability. Moreover, the PGS modification with nanofillers like Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), could not only have a positive impact on increasing elasticity but also hemocompatibility through its anti-protein and anti-platelet adsorption properties.