Jacob Ranjbar ( Poster and Three Minute Thesis )
School of Medicine
Human tissue-engineered arteries can mimic blood clotting : An alternative to current animal experimentation ?
Poster
Background : Upon damage to blood vessels , a variety of mechanisms coordinate blood clotting at the site of injury . Understanding how this occurs inside the body will help generate better drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes . Currently , these experiments can only be performed in animals .
Aim : To produce an artificial tissue-engineered human artery that can be used to study human blood clotting to replace current animal experiments .
Methods : The innermost layers of the artery that trigger blood clotting on vascular injury were made by growing human coronary artery smooth muscle cells or human aortic artery fibroblasts within collagen hydrogels to create tissue-engineered medial ( TEML ) or adventitial layers ( TEAL ).
Results : The TEML supported significant platelet aggregation under arterial flow conditions . Both the TEAL and TEML could trigger coagulation of platelet-poor plasma . These proaggregatory and pro-coagulant properties were both enhanced by adding ascorbic acid to the culture media . A TEAL-TEML co-culture did not improve pro-coagulant properties when compared to the TEML in isolation .
Conclusion : Tissue Engineered human arteries can replicate normal human blood clotting . These can be perfused with human blood to provide a simple and cost-effective alternative to current animal experiments used to study the effect of antithrombotic drugs .
Three Minute Thesis
Cardiovascular disease is amongst the leading causes of premature death in the UK , leading to a growing interest in studying blood-clotting mechanisms . Currently , these experiments can only be performed effectively in animals . In this project , we aim to produce an artificial tissue-engineered human artery ( TEhA ) to study human blood clotting as an alternative to animal experiments . The human arteries were made by growing human vascular cells in a collagen jelly-like structure . We made a novel flow chamber using 3D printing technologies to replicate the flow conditions seen in a human artery . We found that the TEhA can replicate components of normal human blood clotting . The flow chamber and the TEhA together show promise in providing a simple and cost-effective alternative to current animal experiments .
Postgraduate Conference 2020 Page 35