New Advances Push Engineered Tissues Toward 3-D: Multidisciplinary Collaboration is Key to the Success of Regenerative Medicine

Although doctors still cannot simply order new, functioning organs for patients who need replacements, researchers in labs around the world are making the important advances in tissue engineering that set the stage for regenerative medicine as well as make other biomedical technologies possible. To develop the approach, Brandenberg and Lütolf refined a laser dissection microscope by adding precision laser positioning and building software to program the laser and generate what can be quite complex ablation patterns. Next, they constructed an interface to create a functioning microfluidic system. “The rest,” he continues, “was a lot of characterization of the method-how much intensity you need, what types of gels can be ablated, what is the effect on the cells that are sitting close to where you etch away material-to be sure that this is reliable and reproducible.