Category: REdesign News (Page 2 of 3)

The members of the REdesign Lab are delighted to inform you of a new study, led by PhD candidate Emily W. Ozpinar and former undergraduate research assistant Ariana L. Frey, accepted at Tissue Engineering, Part A! Through a collaboration with the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine,  our study explores the use of porcine-derived dermis extracellular matrix hydrogels as a substrate for mast cell viability and maturation. The project has been generously funded by the Comparative Medicine Institute’s Young Scholar Program (YSP) and Summer Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (SIRI), the UNC-CH/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Abrams Scholar Program and the NCSU Office of Undergraduate Research. We thank these funders for their support.

The citation is below:

Ozpinar EW*, Frey AL*, Arthur GK, Mora-Navarro C, Biehl A, Snider DB, Cruse G and Freytes DO. Dermal Extracellular Matrix-Derived Hydrogels as an In Vitro Substrate to Study Mast Cell Maturation. Tissue Engineering Part A. Published Online (October 2020).

*= Co-first authors

Congratulations to all the authors!

The REdesign Lab is very excited to announce that our most recent publication was accepted in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering!

In this work, our lab members developed a new industry scalable tool to derive ECM scaffolds for hydrogel production from porcine heart and vocal fold tissues. The paper is in press and will soon be available online!

The main authors, Dr. Camilo Mora-Navarro and Andreea Badileanu have also worked with the Office of Research Commercialization at NC State to file a Provisional Patent Application (No. 63/024,870) for their invention titled: “Fast Automated Approach for the Derivation of Acellular Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds from Tissues.”

The process just started, but we are very excited about the newly developed system, which will propel  the automated production of ECM hydrogels forward.

Special thanks goes to Jenkins, Wilson, Taylor & Hunt, P.A., the REdesign lab members, and our funding sources: National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC017139, R01DC017743).

A paper as a result of a collaboration between the REdesign Lab and the Biotherapeutics Lab (PI: Dr. Ke Cheng) was published as the cover story in this week’s issue of Science Translational Medicine. Acellular cardiac patches were made from porcine heart extracellular matrix and synthetic cardiac stromal cells. These off-the-shelf patches were able to improve repair after myocardial infarction in rats and pigs.

NC State University featured this study in a recent news article.

Additionally, the study was featured in Nature Reviews Cardiology as a Research Highlight!

Citation is below:

Huang K, Ozpinar EW, Tang J, Shen D, Su T, Qiao L, Liang H, Mathews K, Scharf V, Freytes DO and Cheng K. An Off-the-Shelf Artificial Cardiac Patch Improves Cardiac Repair After Myocardial Infarction in Rats and Pigs. Sci. Transl. Med. 12, eaat9683 (2020).

The REdesign Lab is proud to start the year with a new paper acceptance at ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering! Led by Dr. Camilo Mora-Navarro, the study debuts vocal fold lamina propria as a hydrogel and demonstrates its ability to modulate fibroblast activation via TGF-b1.  Our collaborators are from the New York University School of Medicine and the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine.

The citation is below:

Mora Navarro CA, Badileanu A, Gracioso Martins AM, Ozpinar EW, Gaffney L, Huntress I, Harrell E, Enders JR, Peng X, Branski RC, and Freytes DO. Porcine Vocal Fold Lamina Propria-Derived Biomaterials Modulates TGF-b1 Mediated Fibroblast Activation In Vitro. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering. Accepted (January 2020).

Congratulations!

On October 25th, the NC State Student Chapter of the Society of Biomaterials (SFB) hosted “Biomaterials Day”  at Hunt Library on the NC State campus. The day consisted of guest and student speakers, as well as ample time for networking and poster presentations, all on the topic of biomaterials. The REdesign lab had four oral presentations given by the following REdesign Lab members:

Dr. Camilo Mora-Navarro – “Decellularized Vocal Fold Lamina Propria-ECM And Associated Matrix-bound Vesicles: Proteomic And In Vitro Characterization Of The TGF-β1 Mediated Fibrotic Response In Human Fibroblasts”

Andreea Badileanu (2nd Place Oral Presentation Award) –  “In Vitro Co-Culture Model to Study the Antifibrotic Effect of Porcine Derived Lamina Propria Extracellular Matrix Hydrogel”

Lewis Gaffney – “Muscle and Tendon Derived Extracellular Matrix Promotes Expression of MTJ specific Integrins in Myoblast Cell Culture”

Emily Wrona Ozpinar – “Incorporation of Inflammatory Cells in the Design of Tissue-Engineered Constructs and Drug Delivery Models Using Extracellular Matrices”

The REdesign Lab also had several poster presentations, given by the following students:

Amber Detwiler – “Feeling Out” the Niche for Hair Follicle Development in Bioengineered Skin Grafts

Sabrina Earp – Effect of Extracellular Matrix Components Isolated From Decellularized Porcine Vocal Fold Lamina Propria on Activation of Vocal Fold Fibroblasts

Ariana Frey (3rd Place Poster Award) – The Development of a Three-Dimensional In Vitro Model of Canine and Human Mastocytosis

Cody Helm – Engineering a Nanocarrier Drug Delivery Model to Target Mast Cells in an Extracellular Matrix Hydrogel

We thank the SFB NCSU Student Chapter for hosting a great event and for inviting us to present!

Dr. Mora-Navarro, Isabel, Daphne, Andreea, Lewis, Ariana, Sabrina, Emily, Dr. Freytes and Mario at NCSU Biomaterials Day

The REdesign Lab recently attended and presented at the 2019  Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA! The BMES Annual Meeting brings together scientists and engineers from all fields of biomedical engineering for four days of talks, poster presentations, networking events and celebrations. The REdesign Lab also participated in graduate school recruitment for the department, a summary of which can be found on the UNC-CH/NCSU BME website.

Four REdesign lab members presented the following posters (presenting author is in bold and underlined):

Andreea Badileanu – In Vitro Model Co-Culture Model to Study the Antifibrotic Effect of Porcine Derived Lamina Propria Extracellular Matrix Hydrogel

Ariana Frey – The Development of a Three-Dimensional In Vitro Model of Canine and Human Mastocytosis

Dr. Camilo Mora-Navarro – Proteomic Characterization of Decellularized Vocal Fold Lamina Propria-ECM and Its In vitro Effect upon TGF-b1 Fibrosis Modulation

Emily Wrona Ozpinar – Direct and Indirect Three-Dimensional Co-Cultures of Macrophages and Pluripotent Stem Cell Derived-Cardiomyocytes

Dr. Mora-Navarro, Ariana, Dr. Danny Freytes, Emily and Andreea at BMES 2019.

We had a blast!