Tissue Engineering Resource Center: TR&D3

SUMMARY From its emergence several decades ago, tissue engineering has been driven by the need to replace, repair or regenerate our organs lost to congenital abnormalities, injury or disease. The field of regeneration medicine, often called regenerative engineering, has been transformative for biomedical research. Bioreactors, used in conjunction with reparative cell and biomaterial scaffolds, have played a vital role in advancing tissue engineering by providing physiological environments to the forming tissues. In addition, a bioreactor should also enable monitoring, quantification and control of highly dynamic biological processes involved during tissue and organ culture. These features of bioreactors are critical for further advances in tissue engineering research and the impact of the field on medicine. In response to these needs, we have focused on the development of imaging- enabled bioreactors for regeneration of the two frequently affected organs: lung and heart. The current TERC has developed imaging-enabled bioreactor systems for regeneration of injured donor lungs ex vivo and recapitulation of the acute phase of post-myocardial infarct environment. In TERC renewal, we will continue these translational studies of cardiopulmonary organ regeneration. In Aim 1, we will build upon the lung bioreactor platform and demonstrate its translational utility in clinically-relevant settings. In addition, we will develop an ex vivo whole lung model of cystic fibrosis for studies of therapeutic strategies. Cardiac regeneration studies will continue in the new TR&D2 Aim 2, and will include the immune cell component and the chronic phase of ischemia-reperfusion injury. In Aim 2, we will establish a “patient on a chip” model of cancer metastasis, to establish capability for translational studies of systemic conditions. In Aim 3, we will create a reconfigurable multi-sensing module serving both the micro-bioreactors and whole organ bioreactors, to achieve real-time, non- invasive and quantitative assessments of the tissues and organs. In light of this broader approach to translation of tissue engineering, encompassing the modeling of both injury and disease, at both the micro- and whole- organ scales, we modified the title of TR&D3 from “Regenerative engineering” to “Translational technologies.