Orientation and Alignment of in Vi Tro Capillary Blood Plexus Using Fluid Shear Flow(3/3)

Mass transfer limitation impedes the engineered tissues with no preformed capillary plexus that can be thicker than 2 mm. Pre-vascularization has to be fulfilled before an engineered tissue ready to be implanted into human body. Experiments demonstrated that the endothelial cells transfer their migration behavior via more strong interaction with the environmental substrate and gradually aggregate forming the vascular plexus. To date, the mechanisms underlying the formation of blood vessel plexus from the coalescence and patterning of endothelial cells is still unclear. This research proposal containing three parts aims to conduct the theoretical model development, numerical simulation and experiment verification. All the work will be done in three years. The first part is to build an experimental system that utilize fluid flow to guide the orientation and alignment of the in Vitro capillary plexus. The second part is to develop a novel theoretical vessel plexus formation model that can consist with the biological facts and interpret the mechanisms underlying the vascular plexus formation. The third part is to combine the vascular plexus formation model with computational fluid dynamics to optimize the operating conditions for engineering the capillary plexus formation. The developed technology for guiding the formation of functional capillary plexus in Vitro using fluid shear will decrease the required capillary remodeling time and help the blood vessel bridge between the patients’s and implanted tissues. The developed theoretical model and simulation tool will not only advance the tissue development theory but also help optimize the tissue engineering parameters and operating conditions.