Developing Artificial Organs Using A Cotton Candy Model

Cotton candy gave Cornell University researchers the inspiration for a promising new method to create fine-grained nets of capillaries in artificial organs. Living human tissue, skin, muscle and fat rely on capillaries to dispose of waste and receive nutrients from blood cells. Cornell researchers have devised a method that could someday create capillaries fine enough to support artificially grown tissue, skin, muscle and fat.

Cornell researchers have developed a novel technique for fabricating three-dimensional vascular networks made up of thousands of microchannels in a polymer matrix. The technique is compatible with a wide range of materials, and is based on the use of a sacrificial, melt-spun material. This fibrous material is arranged on a substrate and a selected polymer is poured over it. After the polymer has cured, the sacrificial material can be washed away. 

Credit: Cornell
 
The resulting microchannel-filled materials have a wide range of useful applications. They provide excellent, highly vascular, tissue engineering constructs perfect for reconstructive surgery and wound healing applications. The fluidic structures also serve as ideal carriers of healing agents used in self-healing polymer materials, allowing these technologies to be expanded beyond coatings into larger scale materials. The high surface area vascular networks of course also serve as an ideal environment for various microfluidic processes (heat exchange, etc.).

This technique could someday solve a central problem of developing artificial organs, currently limited by the difficulty of reconstructing the human body’s complex and essential circulatory system quickly and cheaply. In the physical sciences, this method could be used to create fluidic structures to enable self-healing polymer materials for coatings and larger scale materials (e.g., fabrics). Finally, the ability to create networks that have a high surface area of capillaries could support a number of microfluidic processes such as heat exchange.

Potential Applications:

• Tissue engineering, including reconstructive surgery and would healing
• Self-healing polymer materials
• Microfluidics

Advantages:

• Low cost
• Highly scalable
• Non-toxic
• Microchannels extend in all three dimensions

Contacts and sources: 

Martin Teschl, Licensing contact
Cornell University 

Additional Information (publications, web sites, and patent links)
Bellan L. M., Singh S. P., Henderson P. W., Porri T. J., Craighead H. G., Spector J. A. (February 2009). Fabrication of an artificial 3-dimensional vascular network using sacrificial sugar structures. SOFT MATTER (2009).