Recent Advances in the Development of Tissue-engineered Vascular Media Made by Self-assembly

There is a lack of an optimal transplant material for small calibre blood vessels. This could be overcome by tissue engineering. The optimal construct is to be derived from autologous cells and present mechanical resistance comparable to the gold standard, autologous vessels such as the internal mammary artery or the saphenous vein. Our laboratory has developed the self-assembly approach to produce tissue sheets that can be rolled into such vessel substitutes. Over the years, many improvements have been made to the technique to facilitate smooth muscle cell culture and to produce vascular media substitutes with higher circumferential mechanical resistance.