Hierarchical engineering of modular tissues
Castro Johnbosco is a PhD student in the Department of Developmental BioEngineering. Promotors are dr. J.C.H. Leijten and prof.dr. H.B.J. Karperien from the Faculty of Science & Technology.
Tissue engineering is a promising field focused on creating artificial organs and tissues to improve human health. While there has been great progress, one of the biggest challenges remains: how to recreate the complex structure that determines the function of natural tissues.
This thesis takes on that challenge by developing a new method to build tissues that closely resemble the real thing—from the scale of individual cells to the full tissue. The approach starts by creating tiny, living building blocks using advanced microfluidic techniques. These blocks mimic the environment around a single cell in the body, which is crucial for controlling how stem cells grow and develop. Next, these cell-based building blocks are combined into larger structures using a special type of material that separates into different layers, much like oil and water. This helps recreate how real tissues are soft around cells but strong and resilient overall. This modular design protects the cells from harmful substances and helps them retain their own beneficial signals a step closer to create smart self-sustainable real tissues reciprocating their function.
In short, this research offers a new way to build tissues that resembles the native architecture like those in the human body, bringing us a step closer to lab-grown organs that could one day replace damaged or diseased ones.
