Tissue Engineering

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Technology Over 120,000 patients are currently waiting for lifesaving organ and tissue transplants. Tissue engineering has the potential to innovate transplant and minimally invasive surgery by creating tissue substitutes from biopolymers with human stem cells.  GW researchers developed a plant oil infused biopolymer with unique characteristics that are highly compatible to human tissue engineering. The co-polymerization of polycaprolactone (PCL) triol and castor oil yields a translucent biopolymer that exhibits tri-shape memory effects. Importantly, the synthetic biomaterials can be implanted in a compressed state and can subsequently recover their original shape at human body temperature. Compared to existing PCL scaffolds, the novel biomaterials demonstrated greater adhesion and proliferation of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Currently, PCL biomaterials on the market are opaque-white and can only recover their original shape above human body temperature. The translucency and temperature properties of the plant oil-based biopolymer allow for superior applications in minimally invasive surgery.