Microfiber Fabricated for Tissue Engineering

Researchers at Iowa State University have come up with new ways to fabricate microfibers that support cell growth and could be used for reconnecting nerves and regenerating tissue cells in the human body. Nastaran Hashemi, an assistant professor at the Univeristy states, "Neural stem cells on our polymer fibers could survive and grow. They could also be used for cell alignment which is applied in engineered neurobiological systems." This exciting project has been supported by a two year $202,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research. Hashemi says the Office of Naval research is supporting the project because it wants to learn more about brain trauma and how shock waves can cause microbubbles that collapse near the nerve cells of the brain and damage them.

 Reseachers at Iowa State are also working to build a microfiber scaffold to allow the brain cells to survive for the study of brain injuries. It could help repair nerves or tissue damaged by traumatic injuries or terminal diseases. Instead of using high voltage and pressure for the study of fiber fabrication, they work to encapsulate cells within fibers without damaging them. They use hydrodynamic forces to influence the orientation of molecules for the fiber structures that have different properties in different directions. The researchers demonstrated that neural stem cells were able to attach themselves on the microfiber scaffold and align accordingly.

Iowa State University. "Microfibers fabricated for single-cell studies, tissue engineering." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 October 2016.