New APL Bioengineering Publication

MSTP E-15 Student Eileen Brady’s research on Guided Vascularization has been published in APL Bioengineering. The article explores the challenges in replacing damaged organ tissue. Brady et al. used cords of endothelial cells in tissue grafts to guide the assembly of blood vessels after grafting, like the way vines grow over a trellis. One emerging strategy for vascularization uses aligned “cords” of endothelial cells in tissue grafts to guide assembly of chimeric microvessels upon graft implantation. The findings show that patterned endothelial cords guide transient vessel patterning on the rat heart. Results suggest that future work should be directed at further adapting vascularization strategies to the epicardial environment and add to an important emerging dialog in cardiac cell therapy that points to the need to characterize host response prior to or in parallel with efficacy studies.