Bioprinting Patient’s-own Stem Cells for a Truly Personalised Medicine
Regenerative Medicine Research Center at Sichuan University West China Hospital
A personalised approach to medicine is essential to improving quality of life and lowering medical costs. The current disease-based approach, waiting until a disease fits an existing treatment plan means damage is done to patients despite our best efforts. A new personalized approach is possible using regenerative medicine.
The Regenerative Medicine Research Center at Sichuan University West China Hospital has developed a new technology to re-establish tissue injury signals in scarred tissues, such as chronic ischemic infarct heart tissue. This is used in combination with a 3D bio-printing technology to rejuvenate the self-repair process. Together, this novel process is called Destination-Engaged Vector Evolving Lineage Organ Regeneration, or DEVELOR.
In trials, stem cells are taken, propagated, and processed to constitute a fundamental unit of bioink, called Biosynsphere. This newly developed bioink is applied to a bioprinter, producing a vascular graft composed of biosynspheres, adhering to a synthetic vessel to form a hybrid vascular graft for vascular transplantation. So far animal trials have been very successful, and approval for clinical trials by the China FDA as well as the FDA is expected soon.
The possibilities of DEVELOR are recognised worldwide, and researchers aim to use this new technology to provide regenerative therapies for a range of chronic diseases, reaching heart patients, and many others, with this life-changing therapy.