Engineering Blood Vessels from Chitosan

A Florida State University researcher is developing methods for regenerating blood vessels damaged by secondhand tobacco smoke, by using chitosan and gelatin.

A postdoctoral researcher at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering since 2003, Feng Zhao’s main area of research is tissue engineering — the creation of synthetic or natural materials that can be used to replace part of a living system or to function alongside living tissue within the human body. For the project that is being funded by FAMRI, she is focused on addressing cardiovascular diseases caused by secondhand smoke.

For the FAMRI study, Zhao seeks to construct small-diameter blood vessels in a laboratory setting that will mimic the elasticity and other biological characteristics of living blood vessels but that won’t be rejected by the body after being implanted. The blood vessels themselves will be constructed from chitosan, a naturally occurring polymer, and gelatin, a denatured, naturally occurring protein.

“Once the blood-vessel scaffolds are constructed, they will be immersed in a solution that contains human mesenchymal, or adult, stem cells,” Zhao said. “The stem cells then will be stimulated to produce a substance known as an extracellular matrix, or ECM, which will coat and be used by the blood vessels. This ECM is found in living blood vessels and will enable the artificial ones to behave more like living tissue when grafted into the body.”

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