Promoting and Controlling Vascularisation in Engineered Tissues

Research Area: Biomaterials and tissue engineering

Methods of vascularisation of engineered tissue have long been sought after to enable inosculation with host vessels and prevent hypoxia after implantation. Despite some successes, methods remain very much driven by trial and error in order to optimise the combination and ratio of cell types, fluid flow and the quantities of angiogenic factors, to obtain a fully perfusable and stable vascular network. The aim of this project is to use computational modelling, in conjunction with experiments, to model vasculogenesis and, in turn, answer some of the complex questions regarding optimising the relevant physical parameters to ensure both short- and long-term survival of the implanted tissue. To achieve this, the project seeks to address discrepancies between existing models by incorporating other complementary mechanisms suggested in the literature. Furthermore, we seek to use computational modelling to investigate which factors play a key role in the survival and stability of the network once implanted in vivo.