Tohid Didar and Jeff Weitz had a solution, but they also had a problem.
Didar, an associate professor of engineering, and Weitz, a hematologist, professor of medicine, and executive director of the Institute of Thrombosis & Atherosclerosis, collaborated to create a new and evolving document. Hopes are high to improve the success of the vascular transplant, but they need a better way to test how well it works.
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Their revolutionary idea is a non-stick surface engineered with biological ingredients that repels all but one target cell group – the cells that form the natural lining of the static. vessels and arteries of the body.
The anti-adhesive material prevents proteins and cells from sticking to the inner walls of blood vessels, where they can form threatening blood clots.
That innovation could revolutionize vascular transplantation, which is needed in transplants, bypasses and other surgeries, as a way to direct blood around congested areas, or to replace vessels. blood is damaged or leaked.
Didar, Weitz and their collaborators have shown their new material works with still blood samples, but before they can test the technology on animals or humans, they need to be sure it works. can operate under the same flow conditions as in an artery or a vein.
This tiny tool closely replicates four different parts of a human blood vessel, allowing researchers to create variable flow conditions close to the blood vessels in the body and allowing them to monitor what’s going on. happen. Image credit: McMaster University
To do that, their team has now created a device to test their non-stick innovation and future technologies. The tiny tool – which the researchers call a graft on a chip – closely replicates short segments of human blood vessels, allowing the researchers to generate variable flow conditions very close to what’s found in the body, while being able to monitor what’s going on. when it happens.
The device has four channels, allowing the simultaneous comparison of four different types of multiplexing.
“The unmet need in my field is to make better grafts, and the best way to do that is to have better materials that can prevent clotting,” Weitz said. “This will allow us to understand how these surfaces actually behave under real-world conditions.”
New equipment, described in research paper published today in the magazine Advanced functional materialswill allow researchers to track exactly what is going on inside the treated graft, right down to the level of individual cells, and also compare the performance of modified and unmodified versions of the graft. change.
Weitz and Didar’s co-authors on the paper were Veronica A. Bot and Amid Shakeri. The bot led the research, which was part of her research to earn a Master of Science in biomedical engineering at McMaster.
“Using this device gives us a window into a process we’ve never seen before: how blood clots form in the natural environment in vascular grafts,” Didar said. blood and ideally how they don’t form in the treated environment. .
The knowledge the researchers plan to develop with the new device could bring them closer to commercializing their grafting technology. If it proves to be as successful in the body as it is in the lab, it holds great promise for people around the world.
Written by Wade Hemsworth
Source: McMaster University
