|
 
 Mark Haidekker, right, created a non-intrusive device to
examine tissue-engineered skin grafts, heart valves and
blood vessels. Above, left, is a 3-D image of a tissue-engineered
blood vessel that was generated on Haidekker's optical tomography
scanner. Photo courtesy of Mark Haidekker
|
Device
Simplifies Engineered
Tissue Tests
By Jeff Neu
Tissue engineering is a relatively new and
growing area in the field of medicine. In recent years, tremendous
strides have been made in the development of such things as skin
grafts, heart valves and blood vessels. At the present time, these
items are expensive to develop and take time to create. Now, a
University of Missouri-Columbia researcher has developed a machine
that will cut down on the time and cost of creating these tissues.
For more than two years, Mark
Haidekker, assistant professor of biological
engineering, has worked to create a device that examines the
quality of grafts and vessels. He currently is working with the
company Cytograft
Tissue Engineering. His device will dramatically decrease
the number of possible flaws in manufactured tissues and vessels.
For example, the process of creating blood
vessels involves removing a stamp-sized section of tissue from
the patient's arm. The cells from the tissue are grown and expanded
into a sheet of cells in culture, and then rolled into the vessel.
Since the vessels are made on an individual basis, monitoring
their growth is crucial. Structural similarity and adequate thickness
must be ensured, and there can be no weaknesses or deformities.
Haidekker's machine solves those problems.
The device, which involves a technique called
optical transillumination tomography, examines the tissue using
a laser beam and generates a 3D image of the tissue that can be
analyzed on a computer. This allows Haidekker to test the tissue
in a non-invasive way for thickness, structure similarity, density
and possible defects.
Current methods of examining tissue are not
very effective, time-consuming and too expensive to create, Haidekker
said. While current devices take hours to create the 3D images
to examine, his only takes a few minutes. In terms of price, an
MRI machine costs $1.8 million to build and conduct the examinations,
while Haidekker's machine can perform the same tissue examinations
for only $15,000 in material costs.
“This is a quality control device that
will save lives,” Haidekker said. “This machine increases
the success rate of the tissue-engineered items by picking out
the rare, but crucial, flaws that may cause serious problems.”
Archives
| Comments | Home SUBSCRIPTIONS
Subscribe
| Change Your
Address | Unsubscribe
Copyright © 2007 — Curators of the University of Missouri
DMCA and other copyright information.
All rights reserved.
An equal opportunity/ADA institution.
Published by the Mizzou Alumni Association
Questions? Comments? E-mail comments@mizzoualumni.org
Last Update:
March 12, 2007
|
