UC biomedical engineering partners with University of Bordeaux

The human body has an incredible capacity to heal itself, but sometimes it needs a little help. When a patient’s body lacks the resources to perform healing processes, we employ science to aid in reconstructing tissues and organs. Historically, tissue grafts and organ transplants were used, but this practice is limited by the shortage of human donor and invasive harvesting methods.

The development of computer-assisted medical interventions (CAMIs) provides a relevant tool for minimally invasive medical interventions. The advent of bioengineered materials opened a new frontier for tissue regeneration, but there are still many barriers to overcome before printing new tissue is a reality.

The vascular system supplies blood to all tissues and organs in the body. Vascular cells serve vital functions in the healing process, including nutrient and oxygen delivery. Endothelial cells on the inner surface of blood vessels also transmit bioactive molecules that affect the cellular environment. These chemical and mechanical signals stimulate vital processes like angiogenesis (the formation of new, functional blood vessels), which is essential to successful wound healing and tissue growth.

The ultimate success of 3D biological printing depends on the ability to create blood vessels within the printed tissue, and currently available 3D printing methods largely fail to create materials that stimulate capillary growth effectively. To function in the human body, complex tissues must be vascularized (have a functioning network of blood vessels). Embedded vascular networks are the missing link in the chain that will someday seamlessly merge laboratory-engineered human tissues with human bodies.

Daria Narmoneva, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati, spent the summer at the Laboratory for the Bioengineering of Tissues (BioTis) in Bordeaux, France, working alongside Prof. Raphaël Devillard, a leader in the field of 3D printing for bone and vascular tissue engineering.

Dr. Devillard uses a unique process, called Laser-Assisted Bioprinting (LAB) that represents as an exciting addition to the bioprinting’s arsenal, due to its rapidity, precision and ability to print viable cells both in vitro and in vivo, and can overcome many limitations of traditional 3D bioprinting approaches.

Techniques under development at BioTis print biological material that could aid wound healing in seconds using "bio ink." This is in contrast to the current techniques, which take several hours and use small jets of material.

In collaboration with Devillard and his group (Dr. Olivia Kérourédan and graduate student Jeremy Lesas), Narmoneva was researching a solution to one of the current hurdles in tissue engineering technology: encouraging engineered tissues to grow vascular networks in vitro.

Recent exciting findings by Narmoneva’s group in collaboration with Dr. Andrei Kogan (UC Physics) demonstrate that the growth of new blood vessels in capillary networks can be stimulated by exposure to specific electrical fields.