Since donated organs are in short supply, the alternative of reconstituting them form cultivated specialized cells and extracellular matrix components becomes an important challenge for tissue engineering. Reconstituting a functional endocrine pancreas equivalent capable of rescuing diabetics is the combined goal of Phase I and Phase II programs. Underlying the effort to reconstitute an implantable endocrine pancreas is an opportunity to test an in vitro approach to building a replacement part for the body. In phase I we will test: 1) whether specially processed, animal derived, extracellular fetal matrix components of two types (tissue specific and non-specific ADMAT), combined with dissociated cells from rat and human pancreatic islets will stimulate the combined with dissociated cells from rat and human pancreatic islets will stimulate the glandular cells of the Islet to divide; 2) whether the ADMAT material in the form of microbeads used in spinner flasks or in a bioreactor will provide a means of scaling up production of hormonal cells of the endocrine pancreas. 3) whether the progeny of the cultivated glandular cells, reaggregate into pseudo-islets on ADMAT microbeads will function as responsive hormone secretors and whether the ADMAT microbead configuration promotes Islet organization.
| Donlin, Maureen J; Lomonosova, Elena; Kiss, Alexi et al. (2014) HCV genome-wide genetic analyses in context of disease progression and hepatocellular carcinoma. PLoS One 9:e103748 |
