I-Corps: Nipple regeneration for breast cancer survivors

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种工艺技术，为患者提供一种天然色素供体皮肤支架(同种异体移植)，用于从手术、烧伤和其他需要组织再生的程序中恢复。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融合，减轻他们的情绪恢复和自我形象。在包括乳房重建在内的外科手术中，对这种工程化同种异体移植物的需求越来越大。在美国，乳腺癌诊断的发病率一直在迅速增加。此外，在过去的几十年里，女性为了预防措施而接受双侧乳房切除术的趋势越来越大，即使只在一个乳房发现乳腺癌。这种手术需要完全重建双侧乳房。2015年，有176,308例乳房重建手术，这一数字预计还会继续上升。这种工艺技术将通过改进支架的生产来帮助满足部分需求，并可能导致新的方法，计划手术的个人可以在他们的手术中处理和重复使用他们自己的组织(自体移植)。这个i-Corps项目将开发一种从人类乳头乳晕复杂组织中提取的乳头再生支架。目前，乳房重建所需的乳头重建的最佳选择是切割和缝合乳房上的皮肤，以创建一个疤痕堆，然后纹身，以获得所需的色素沉着，重现乳头的外观。不幸的是，由于下层组织的回缩力和疤痕组织的收缩，这种方法会导致乳头变平。我们的工程工艺技术不像目前的重建方法那样，只是重建乳头的外观，而是允许患者使用支架帮助再生由她自己的细胞制成的乳头。我们正在开发的脚手架加工的部分已经在实验室环境中进行了演示。这项技术的优势包括当支架重新填充患者的细胞时，改善了细胞的增殖、分化和迁移。在再生医学应用中设计组织支架时，非常需要保持天然的组织成分，最近的研究表明，当这种支架来自特定部位的同种组织时，可以产生优越的功能和复杂的组织形成。

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.