One of the most elementary pieces of data sought for many medical treatments, including medicines and interventional therapies like biomedical device implantation, is the treatment’s angiogenic potential; the capacity of the material, agent or medicine to drive neo-vascularisation towards itself. Angiogenesis is a double edged sword. Whilst blood vessels bring nutrient rich tissue fluid to a tissue compromised by damage or disease allowing integration of the treatment with host tissues and avoiding tissue breakdown and necrosis, with the new vessels comes the host defence immune cells, that includes macrophages with the capacity to degrade the treatment and inhibit the function and proliferation of the cells required to provide for a successful clinical outcome. It is therefore of paramount importance during the development of any biomedical device or pharmaceutical agent that the angiogenic potential is characterised and ideally defined by design. This research investigates the provision of a 3D gel with and without cells for use in vitro using tissue engineering systems to produce a 3D cell culture tissue model to replace animal models for the evaluation of the angiogenic potential of material and soluble substances. The approach offers the potential to provide a highly reproducible and well defined model to replace current animal models (subcutaneous implantation, CAM assay, corneal implantation, skin flap models) for the study of the angiogenic potential of exogenous factors including medicines be they biomaterials and/or agents of pharmaceutical interest.
The University of NottinghamUniversity Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD
Tel: +44 (0) 115 8466946 Email: bbdtp@nottingham.ac.uk