Tissue engineered blood vessels

Globally, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death. Treatment by surgical intervention is commonplace and there is a great need for suitable blood vessels for use in bypass surgery and the creation of vascular access conduits. Currently, utilising autologous veins or arteries represents the gold standard for vascular grafting. However, these vessels are of limited availability, may be of poor quality and their extraction causes donor site morbidity. Synthetic vascular grafts are also available, constructed from materials such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Although these grafts have shown satisfactory performance as large and medium diameter vessels, they remain inferior to autografts for small diameter applications.
Tissue engineering offers a potential alternative to autologous vessels or synthetic vascular grafts. Tissue engineered blood vessels (TEBVs) may be grown in vitro for implantation as bypass grafts, vessel replacements or vascular access conduits. These vessels could offer superior performance to synthetic grafts and could be obtained without the need for invasive autograft harvest. Prominent research groups have made great strides towards producing TEBVs with some products currently undergoing clinical trials [6]. However, these technologies only offer the ability to generate uniform tubular blood vessels and they would be very difficult to adapt to producing more complex shapes due to their sheet-based manufacturing process. This project will aim beyond the current state-of-the-art in tissue engineered blood vessels to manufacture flexible, porous biodegradable materials in complex geometries (e.g. tapers, bifurcations or valves).