Lasers and New-Age Scaffold: The Latest in Stem Cell Science

The sphere of medicine that deals in the reconstruction of damaged tissue has for several years now, investigated the possibility and promise of repairing injuries by choosing to have the body re-grow itself. The well-publicized stem cell research is the most promising such possibility yet known of . Stem cells are undeveloped cells that are capable of taking on the characteristics of the cells of any body part that they are placed in. There is a specific way of placing stem cells in a body part to ensure that they grow in place and in the right form and manner. The best way of placing cells in a body part is by method of what is known as a scaffold. A scaffold is a porous object made of biodegradable polymer that is molded in the shape and size of the body part that needs repair. It is seeded with stem cells or other cells that are capable of performing the function needed, and placed within the body by method of surgery. With time the stem cells take on or learn the properties of the cells they are intended to perform the function of, and they grow over the matrix or scaffold to form a seamless continuity with the healthy cells around them. Since the polymer used is biodegradable, the body absorbs the material over the course of a few months, and leaves only the reparative tissue in the right place.

Polymer scaffolds have benefited from new research lately. Living tissue is known to possess electrical, mechanical, directional and textural properties that need to be mimicked by any tissue that replaces it. Heart tissue for example needs to be more pliable to longitudinal forces and less to transverse forces. To repair cardiac muscle that has been injured, the scaffold placed at the heart needs to possess the same consistency, stretch and firmness as real heart tissue does, in order that the new stem cell tissue implanted with the scaffold might be encouraged to form in the same way. While the old scaffold designs were unable to do this, new ones do have this ability. New scaffolds are created of material that can be made to possess the structural properties of the tissue they are meant to repair. With the help of lasers, the new polymer scaffolds can be shaped to possess the same characteristics as the heart tissue they are meant for. When the polymer scaffolds are molded, new techniques allow for curing time to be changed in a way that will allow for such characteristics to be given to them.

Normal heart cells, when subjected to an electrical current, tend to contract one way and not in another. New scaffolds are readily able to lend to the new tissue that forms over them these required propensities in reaction to stimulation. Biological tissue is not made of randomly oriented cells. It is made of cells that have perceptible grain or direction of growth. Older techniques could stimulate tissue to grow with a preferred alignment, but only with painstaking electrical stimulation all through. The new molds are able to do this merely by their design.

These new developments are the product of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Efforts are on at this time to design a catalog of polymer scaffolds to go into every kind of body part. Future developments are planned to address certain shortcomings in existing techniques. The present scaffold design is unsuitable for places where thick multi-layered muscle tissue is required. Tissue formed by the current technique is necessarily uni-layered and thin. It is believed that current research can address this not long from now.