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Micro Tissue Engineering

Micro Tissue Engineering

The Micro Tissue Engineering (MTE) group researches, develops and teaches new technologies on a micro- and nanoscale to support and control cell, tissue and organ fate and function. The ultimate aim of MTE’s activities is to implement corresponding regenerative medicine-related tests and therapies/treatments in biomedical laboratories and clinics, respectively. The employment of these technologies including micro(bio)fabrication and ‑fluidics in tissue engineering is expected to allow so far unprecedented control over cells and tissues by adjacent biomaterial surfaces decorated and defined on a microscale, or by microscale flow/convective or diffusive regimes. Technology examples are 3D microformed and ‑functionalized membranes as biomimetic, anatomically shaped culture substrates in microfluidic in vitro models of human barrier tissues or organs, or micro- and nanoengineered and ‑functionalized objects as cell-assemblable and ‑instructive dynamic miniature scaffolds.

Selected publications

  • Baptista D, Teixeira L, van Blitterswijk C, Giselbrecht S, Truckenmüller R. Overlooked? Underestimated – Substrate curvature effect on cell behaviour. Trends Biotechnol. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2019.01.006.
  • Vrij E, Rouwkema J, LaPointe V, van Blitterswijk C, Truckenmüller R, Rivron N. Directed assembly and development of material-free tissues with complex architectures. Adv Mater. 2016;28(21):4032-9, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27000493
  • Leferink A, Schipper D, Arts E, Vrij E, Rivron N, Karperien M, Mittmann K, van Blitterswijk C, Moroni L, Truckenmüller R. Engineered micro-objects as scaffolding elements in cellular building blocks for bottom-up tissue engineering approaches. Adv Mater. 2014;26(16):2592-9, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24395427
  • Giselbrecht S, Reinhardt M, Mappes T, Börner M, Gottwald E, van Blitterswijk C, Saile V, Truckenmüller R. Closer to Nature – Bio-inspired patterns by transforming latent lithographic images. Adv Mater. 2011;23(42):4873-9, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21935996
  • Truckenmüller R, Giselbrecht S, Rivron N, Gottwald E, Saile V, van den Berg A, Wessling M, van Blitterswijk C. Thermoforming of film-based biomedical microdevices. Adv Mater. 2011;23(11):1311-29, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21400590
Section of an engineered artificial/synthetic cellular microenvironment in the form of a topographically defined hemispherical microwell from polylactic acid with myoblasts aligning to the microgrooves on the surface of the strongly curved microwell wall; scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Section of an engineered artificial/synthetic cellular microenvironment in the form of a topographically defined hemispherical microwell from polylactic acid with myoblasts aligning to the microgrooves on the surface of the strongly curved microwell wall; scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image.
Aggregate from human mesenchymal stromal cells, dynamically scaffolded by cell-assembled engineered micro-objects from polymer; SEM image.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Aggregate from human mesenchymal stromal cells, dynamically scaffolded by cell-assembled engineered micro-objects from polymer; SEM image.
Principal Investigator

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