A 'Toolbox' for Tissue Engineering -- Biomedical Engineering at RIT (VIDEO)
Caption
Thomas Gaborski's research may be in ultra-thin nano-membranes, but it's going to be titanic in advancing tissue engineering. Gaborski, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, and his research team, are developing ways to use ultra-thin nano-membranes and adipose (fat cell) stem cells to create the vascular networks necessary for engineering tissue, skin and organs. For these organs to be viable, there is a need for not only the organ structure but also, the inner network of micro-vessels and capillaries. Gaborski is developing those complex structures, specifically transparent and permeable membrane 'scaffolds' for supporting cell and tissue growth, essential to tissue engineering. Using adipose-derived stem cells that come from fat tissue, acquired from adults rather than embryos, Gaborski has been able to create functional micro-environments that help support and differentiate stem cells into the specialized cells that make up the human body. Creating engineered tissues from stem cells not only addresses the critical shortage of donor organs, but also potentially solves many aspects of organ rejection by an individual's immune system because there is the likelihood that the stem cells could generate tissue from an individual's own cells, alleviating questions about embryonic stem cell use.
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David Wivell/RIT University News
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