EMBS Chapter Talk, September 2016

Dr. Fabiola Munarin will be giving a talk entitled “Collagen – alginate microspheres hybrid scaffolds for cardiac regeneration” to the Providence Section EMBS Chapter.  Dr. Munarin obtained her European PhD in Bioengineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2011.  In 2014, she joined the Coulombe Laboratory at Brown University, focusing her research on cardiac regeneration.

A brief abstract of the talk is shown below.  A light lunch will be provided with this talk.  

Abstract

Revascularization is essential for any scaffold or graft to survive in vivo for the regeneration of pathological tissues and organs. The formation of new vessels in tissue engineered scaffolds is crucial for cardiac regeneration, as adult cardiomyocytes have limited healing capabilities following injuries such as myocardial infarction. At Coulombe Lab, we design scaffolds that use a combination of biochemical cues and physical stimuli to induce host endothelial cells invasion and neovascularization in cardiac implants. Recent studies performed by our group have demonstrated the ability of a collagen matrix with dispersed alginate microspheres to act as a template for the in vitro 3-dimensional growth of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), that were able to form hierarchical structures in the scaffold. We hypothesize that the vascularization of the scaffold can be further enhanced by combining the geometrical stimuli provided by the microspheres with the biochemical effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (b-FGF) and sonic hedgehog (SHH). In vitro studies with HUVECs immobilized in the collagen-alginate microspheres scaffolds releasing 7 – 10 ng/mL VEGF after 1 day of incubation, and 1.8 – 3.6 ng/mL of VEGF in the following 2 days, demonstrated the increased network area, length and number of branch points (+204% +512% and +375%, respectively) with respect of the unloaded controls. Preliminary in vivo studies are ongoing to assess the ability of the collagen-alginate microspheres scaffold loaded with VEGF, b-FGF and SHH to induce vessel formation in healthy rat hearts and to support the regeneration and healing of infarcted rat hearts.

Speaker(s): Dr. Fabiola Munarin,

Location:
Room: 325
Bldg: 85 Waterman Street/BERT
85 Waterman Street
Providence, Rhode Island
02912