The video shows neonatal heart cells, cultured from cardiac stem cells, beating on our CellAlign substrate after 14 days.
4,800,000 people suffer from congestive heart failure. Those that survive have damaged hearts- a cardiac patch could replace the damaged tissue and reduce the risk of further failures. CellAlign is a small step towards this goal.
CellAlign is a nanopatterned substrate with anisotropic wrinkles on the surface. The orientation imposed by the wrinkles causes the cardiac stem cells to differentiate. Typical methods of inducing differentiation include electrical or mechanical stimulation. Our scaffold-free passive approach is advantageous: We avoid complications from scaffold bio-degradation, are capable of forming vasculature, and are able to synchronize the beats with electrical stimulation.
CellAlign is also capable of aligning other tissue types, such as nervous (brain) tissue.
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This is an amazing advancement in technology!
lovescience100 2 years ago