Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering originating in a desire to understand the aetiology of pressure ulcers is a core field of the Group.

The combination of our mechanical understanding and the LSR's ability to differentiate and proliferate living cell cultures have brough about the interesting result that we can control the growing direction of muscle fibers by mechanical stimuli.

The picture shows myocytes (cells creating muscle tissue) forming  muscle fibers on a membrane in an incubator. By dynamically straining the tissue during growth, muscle fibers can be aligned to form a functional muscle that contracts in desired directions.

We pursue tissue Engineering in close cooperation with the university's Laboratory of Stem Cell Research (LSR).

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Tissue engineering, as the name indicates, is an attempt to engineer living tissue as opposed to dead materials. The potential of the field is enormous and, in a dream scenario, we may eventually be able to engineer replacements for body parts and complex organs based on stem cells harvested from the patient.