Arbeitsgruppe : Tissue engineering

Engineering von Hart- und Weichgeweben

In our tissue engineering lab, we focuse on engineering and regeneration of tissues for maxillofacial reconstruction, i.e. bone and soft tissues, with special impact on strategies for immediate vascularization. Vascularization may be accomplished in vitro, in specialized bioreactors or in vivo.

Adipose tissue
Adipose tissue provides shape and volume of the outer contour of the body and preserves mobility of tissue layers. Soft tissue augmentation has strong significance in many instances of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Engineering of adipose tissue may also be model for the engineering of other soft tissues. Problems to be solved are for instance the evaluation of suited carrier materials, the problem of nutrition and vascularization. We developed an in vitro adipose tissue engineering and succeeded in engineering of viable, completely differentiated constructs in vitro, which were transplanted successfully in SCID-mice.

Bone regeneration
Bone repair may be accomplished by engineering (with cell transplantation) and also by regenerative strategies (without cell transplantation). A further question is the source of cells, which might be mesenchymal progenitors from bone marrow or other tissues like adipose tissue. Bone engineering and regeneration strategies are followed with other institutions in the Leipzig-Halle region

Living engineered human adipose tissue in SCID-mouse		Matrix mineralisation after osteogenic differentiation of adipose tissue derived mesenchymal progenitor cells in conventional two-dimensional culture (left) and three-dimensional culture aggregates (right)