Tenths of millions of people with organ failures or suffering from degenerative diseases are waiting for a novel cellular therapy or for a transplant of a donor compatible organ and the immense majority of these patients will die before receiving the tissue or organ they need. Despite the significant advances in tissue engineering, not a single artificial tissue has been used to replace a part of an organ, with the exception of simple or avascular tissues like skin or cartilage. And the main impediment is the up-to-date impossibility to engineer physiological vascular networks to provide O2 and nutrients to the artificial tissue.
THOR solves this drawback with the combination of self-assembling molecules (SAM) inspired to the Extracellular matrix (ECM) to construct solid and hollow polymeric fibers, spiderbots to create self-assembling structures (SAS) and photoactivable crosslinkers-based functionalization of the structures using SAM proteins. THOR tissue arises from high-resolution 3D spatial positioning of SAS, angiogenic factors and relevant cell lineages, reprogrammed and expanded in a dedicated bioreactor under controlled conditions.
B105 Electronics Systems Lab is in charge of the design and implementation of the spiderbots, as well as the integration with the rest of the technologies.
Title: THOR – Building vascular networks and Blood-Brain-Barriers through a Biomimetic manufacturing Technology for the fabrication of Human tissues and Organs
Duration: January 2023 – December 2026
Partners: UNIVERSIDAD POLITÉCNICA DE MADRID, UNIVERSITAETSKLINIKUM FREIBURG, ELVESYS, UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELLA CAMPANIA LUIGI VANVITELLI, BIOACTIVE SURFACES, S.L.
Financing entity: HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDEROPEN-01 (GA 101099719)
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