Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) scientists have improved upon the 3D bioprinting technique they developed to engineer skeletal muscle as a potential therapy for replacing diseased or damaged muscle tissue, moving another step closer to someday being able to treat patients.
Skeletal muscles are attached to bones by tendons and are responsible for the body’s movement. When they are damaged, there is often loss of muscle function because the nerves are no longer sending signals to the brain.
Treatment of extensive muscle defect injuries like those caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the battlefield, for instance, is difficult and often requires reconstructive surgery with muscle grafts. Effective nerve integration of bioengineered skeletal muscle tissues has been a challenge.
“Being able to bioengineer implantable skeletal muscle constructs that mimics the native muscle to restore function represents a significant advance in treating these types of injuries,” said lead author Ji Hyun Kim, PhD, of WFIRM. “Our hope is to develop a therapeutic option that will help heal injured patients and give them back as much function and normalcy as possible.”
The work is detailed in a paper published online today by the journal Nature Communications.
Institute scientists previously demonstrated that the Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP), developed in house over a 14-year period, can generate organized printed muscle tissue that is robust enough to maintain its structural characteristics.
Since then, the WFIRM researchers have been developing and testing different types of skeletal muscle tissue constructs to find the right combination of cells and materials to achieve functional muscle tissue. In the current study, they investigated the effects of neural cell integration into the bioprinted muscle construct to accelerate functional muscle regeneration.
“These constructs were able to facilitate rapid nerve distribution and matured into organized muscle tissue that restored normal muscle weight and function in a pre-clinical model of muscle defect injury,” said Sang Jin Lee, PhD., co-senior author, also of WFIRM.
Image Credit: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine/WFIRM.
Thanks to Heinz V. Hoenen. Follow him on twitter: @HeinzVHoenen
News This Week
US records 5 million COVID-19 cases as almost 20 million infected worldwide
he United States has recorded 5 million confirmed coronavirus cases, while almost 20 million people are infected worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. Outside of the US, Brazil recorded more than 3 million cases, [...]
90 per cent of recovered COVID-19 patients in Wuhan suffering from lung damage
According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients'lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered 90% of an example [...]
MIT’s machine learning designed a COVID-19 vaccine that could cover a lot more people
There are currently 25 vaccines to fight COVID-19 in clinical evaluation, another 139 vaccines in a pre-clinical stage, and many more being researched. But many of those vaccines, if they are at all successful, might [...]
Gold nanosensor spots difference between Dengue, Zika
A new class of nanosensor developed in Brazil could more accurately identify dengue and Zika infections, a task that is complicated by their genetic similarities and which can result in misdiagnosis. The technique uses [...]
We Are Mutating Coronavirus, but It Is Evolving Back
Scientists investigating the evolution of the virus that causes Covid19 say that its mutation seems to be directed by human proteins that degrade it, but natural selection of the virus enables it to bounce [...]
Novel Drug Delivery Particles Use Neurotransmitters as a ‘Passport’ Into the Brain
Biomedical engineers at the Tufts University School of Engineering have developed tiny lipid-based nanoparticles that incorporate neurotranmitters to help carry drugs, large molecules, and even gene editing proteins across the blood-brain barrier and into [...]
Artificial Intelligence Allows Rapid COVID-19 Lung Imaging Analysis
UC San Diego recently announced that its health radiologists and other physicians are now leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to augment lung-imaging analysis in a clinical research study aimed at COVID-19 lung imaging analysis. The cause of [...]
Second Coronavirus Strain May Be More Infectious—but Some Scientists Are Skeptical
The hubbub around mutations in the virus that causes COVID-19—and how they might make it more infectious—has been around since the early phase of the pandemic. A preprint study about a particular mutation involving [...]
Oxford vaccine: Early trials suggest “double protection” from coronavirus
Human trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by scientists in Oxford are reported to have shown promising results. The researchers believe they have made a breakthrough after discovering the jab could provide “double protection” [...]
COVID: Engineers design a reusable, silicone rubber face mask
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a new face mask that they believe could stop viral particles as effectively as N95 masks. Unlike N95 masks, the new masks were designed [...]
Warning of serious brain disorders in people with mild coronavirus symptoms
Doctors may be missing signs of serious and potentially fatal brain disorders triggered by coronavirus, as they emerge in mildly affected or recovering patients, scientists have warned. Neurologists are on Wednesday publishing details of [...]
Nanoparticles Offer a Promising Way for Treating Cancer, Liver Disorders
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a safer and more efficient way to deliver a promising new method for treating cancer and liver disorders and for vaccination -- including a COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna [...]
Covid-19 vaccines may be stifled by pre-existing antibodies
Despite its advantages over other vaccine technologies for Covid-19, adenovirus vector vaccines are likely to be tripped up by pre-existing antibodies to the vectors used and the need for a second injection to boost [...]
This coronavirus mutation has taken over the world. Scientists are trying to understand why.
When the first coronavirus cases in Chicago appeared in January, they bore the same genetic signatures as a germ that emerged in China weeks before. But as Egon Ozer, an infectious-disease specialist at the Northwestern University [...]
Online Special Edition “NanoScientific Symposium on Nano Applications”
Park Systems presents “NanoScientific Symposium on Nano Applications for a Changing World” sponsored by Physics World and Nanotechnology World Association. Park Systems launched this online event for researchers and scientists in nanoscience and nanotechnology [...]
Medical nanotechnology research for COVID-19
Notwithstanding the wishful thinking of certain irresponsible and incompetent public figures, the only options to control and deal with the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are fast, cheap, reliable, [...]
