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Dr Sotiris A Korossis - Research Fellow

Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering
School of Mechanical Engineering,
The University of Leeds,
LS2 9JT, UK.

Functional maturation of tissue In vitro in response to biomechanical stimulation
BBSRC
Supervisor: Professor Eileen Ingham, Professor John Fisher, Professor Jenny Southgate (York)

Two potential obstacles to the creation of implantable tissue-engineered tissues are inadequate mechanical properties, and lack of remodeling and growth potential. A promising tissue engineering strategy is to grow a complete three-dimensional tissue in vitro and then implant it once it has reached "maturity." The approach makes use of appropriate in vitro-propagated and -manipulated autologous stromal and mesenchymal stem cells to cellularise decellularised urinary bladder scaffolds, coupled with physically appropriate conditioning in bioreactors. This project will investigate whether smooth muscle, urothelial and mesenchymal stem cells can be guided with appropriate targeted mechanical stimuli to selectively develop in the laboratory to regenerate urinary bladder patches with appropriate biological and biomechanical functionality. The project focuses on the development of an in vitro cell culture system that will provide physiological biaxial strain fields to developing urinary bladder constructs. The purpose of the bioreactor will be the physical conditioning of the reconstituted bladder patches to provide appropriate biomechanical function prior to transplantation. The system will be designed to: (a) establish spatially uniform three-dimensional cell distributions on decellularised bladder scaffolds; (b) maintain desired concentrations of gases and nutrients in the culture medium; (c) expose developing tissue to appropriate physical stimuli simulating the slow filing and abrupt voiding of the urinary bladder.

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