Self Sustaining Scaffolds

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Globally, millions of people die, undergo amputation or suffer loss of function because some of the estimated 2-50 billion capillaries in their bodies cease to function normally. Recent advances in stenting, surgery and phamaceutics have helped bypass, open and prevent closure of small diameter arteries saving countless lives. At or below the scale of arterioles - venules the vasculature can regenerate rapidly but science has little understanding of how to purposefully direct or enhance this innate power to induce augmented regeneration. Patients simply wait for adequate healing to occur and avoid infection. Poor healing due to advanced age, diabetes and vascular disease, leads to complications such as increased post surgical mortality, failure of interventions and prolonged hospital stays. State of the art is a simple vacuum dressing that can stop fluid build up, help reduce infection and thereby accelerate healing or where feasible a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. It occurred to the applicant that the huge effort in improving oxygen diffusion into and waste out of porous electrodes to build the fuel cell powered future could also be applied to devices that could potentially replicate some of the functions of capillaries. Preliminary data with sustained oxygen delivery peroxide decomposition composites were highly encouraging such as preventing necrosis and loss of tissue in a poorly vascularized wound, maintaining avascular tissue viability long enough for revasuclarisation of a 17mm thick graft, culturing cells for 3 days at hitherto impossible densities: (1.5mm diameter spheres, density 2 x10