The novel technique could be used to treat damaged tissue in a range of medical applications, including reconstructive and plastic surgeries.
A technology most often used for medical imaging is being repurposed as a new tool for restoring blood flow in tissue damaged from disease, injury, and reconstructive surgery. Biomedical engineers at the 人妻少妇专区 are leveraging ultrasound waves to organize endothelial cells鈥攖he building blocks of blood vessels鈥攊nto patterns that can promote the growth of new vessel networks within days.
鈥淲e developed a novel technique using some of the forces associated with an ultrasound field called acoustic radiation force to act on cells in a material to move them to different spatial locations,鈥� says , the Kevin J. Parker Distinguished Professor in and director of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound. 鈥淏y changing the frequency of the sound fields, we can control the distance between how the cells are patterned. Depending on the patterning we use, we can create different types of blood vessel morphologies.鈥�
A team led by Dalecki and , a professor of and of biomedical engineering, have used the technique to engineer tissue with new blood vessel networks in vitro. In their recently published studies, they showed that acoustic patterning can also be used to produce new blood vessels directly in the body. A new will help the researchers refine their in vivo acoustic patterning technologies.
鈥淩ather than making an engineered tissue product outside of the body and then implanting it, we would like to induce the formation of new blood vessels directly in the body,鈥� says Hocking. 鈥淯ltrasound has the ability to penetrate through tissue and is already used in many clinical applications, so why not try to produce new vessels locally?鈥�
The first step of the project will be finding the ideal combinations of cells and hydrogels to best form new blood vessels. Rather than going through the long process of extracting stem cells from bone marrow, the team hopes to get the necessary host of cells from a patient鈥檚 fat tissue.
鈥淲e also have to innovate some new instrumentation to do the procedure in vivo,鈥� says Dalecki. 鈥淭he approach we used outside the body had a transducer and a reflector, but you can鈥檛 put a reflector in the body. One approach we鈥檙e testing uses a holographic lens transducer that includes a 3D-printed mask, while the other involves using two intersecting ultrasound beams to create an acoustic standing wave field within the body non-invasively.鈥�
Once the group has completed those steps, they aim to demonstrate the procedure in a clinically relevant model. Ultimately, the researchers hope the method can be used in a wide range of medical applications, including wound healing, plastic surgeries, and cancer surgeries.
鈥淒uring reconstructive surgeries such as after a tumor removal, you鈥檝e taken out a lot of tissue and you can replace it with a filler, but there are no blood vessels,鈥� says Hocking. 鈥淎s a result, a lot of people have a loss of blood vessels in surrounding tissue鈥攚hat we call an ischemic injury. That leads to cell and tissue death in the area. We want to be able to reconstruct some of those small microvessels to restore good blood flow and preserve the tissue.鈥�
Dalecki and Hocking will collaborate with experts from the 人妻少妇专区 Medical Center including vascular surgeon and Professor Emeritus , as well as Mohamed Ghanem from the University of Washington鈥檚 Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound.
