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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-get-these-at-the-circus dept.

Leon Bellan and his colleagues have repurposed cotton candy machines to help create capillary systems for lab-grown organs:

Cotton candy machines may hold the key for making life-sized artificial livers, kidneys, bones and other essential organs. For several years, Leon Bellan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, has been tinkering with cotton candy machines, getting them to spin out networks of tiny threads comparable in size, density and complexity to the patterns formed by capillaries – the tiny, thin-walled vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to cells and carry away waste. His goal has been to make fiber networks that can be used as templates to produce the capillary systems required to create full-scale artificial organs."

In an article published online on Feb. 4 by the Advanced Healthcare Materials journal, Bellan and colleagues report that they have succeeded in using this unorthodox technique to produce a three-dimensional artificial capillary system that can keep living cells viable and functional for more than a week, which is a dramatic improvement over current methods.

"Some people in the field think this approach is a little crazy," said Bellan, "But now we've shown we can use this simple technique to make microfluidic networks that mimic the three-dimensional capillary system in the human body in a cell-friendly fashion. Generally, it's not that difficult to make two-dimensional networks, but adding the third dimension is much harder; with this approach, we can make our system as three-dimensional as we like."

[...] Bellan is using a top-down approach. He reports that his cotton-candy spinning method can produce channels ranging from three to 55 microns, with a mean diameter of 35 microns. "So far the other top-down approaches have only managed to create networks with microchannels larger than 100 microns, about ten times the size of capillaries," he said. In addition, many of these other techniques are not able to form networks as complex as the cotton candy approach.

Development of 3D Microvascular Networks Within Gelatin Hydrogels Using Thermoresponsive Sacrificial Microfibers (DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201500792)


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:45PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:45PM (#302276)

    Can't think of anything to say. All the flamebait this week has got me all tuckered out.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:53PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:53PM (#302283)

    After years of tinkering with cotton candy machines, he'll have the personal motivation of needing a working replacement liver.

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:02AM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:02AM (#302457) Journal

      After sitting in front of one for a few hours, it very quickly loses its appeal. Trust me. I've probably made over 100,000 in my life working for the family carnival business. Cant stand the sight of it.

  • (Score: 2) by Bobs on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:05PM

    by Bobs (1462) on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:05PM (#302322)

    N/T