Unmet NeedThe lack of oxygen, or “hypoxia,” can result in severe tissue damage when localized to a region of tissue in the body. Hypoxia also presents a road block to advancement for in vitro tissue engineering because large tissues, organs, and 3D cell cultures quickly develop hypoxia outside the body due to the difficulty in transporting oxygen. Oxygenating live tissue in vitro requires the growth of new blood vessels in the tissue, called vascularization, but this takes hours (sometimes up to days) depending on the size of the sample.
Techniques have been developed to deliver oxygen to in vitro tissues in a way to control the concentration and the duration of oxygen release until vascularization takes place. Certain techniques modulate oxygen release using chemical reactions that allow for targeted oxygen delivery, but these techniques can be costly and result in by-products that are toxic to the tissue. Chemical methods, which are dependent on the kinetics of the reaction, also make it difficult to tune the release time or concentration of oxygen independently of one another.
Tissue engineering and regeneration are important technologies that have applications in various medical fields including cardiology, oncology, dermatology, wound healing, neurology, and many more. Advancing tissue engineering is critical for reconstructive surgery for traumatic injury or severe burns, organ transplants, and 3D cell culture for in-vitro modeling of tissues. Stem cell 3D cultures, for example, are unique platforms for disease modeling and developing regenerative medicines. Cell therapies show a better adoption rate than transplanted tissues or organs and were valued at $4.1 billion in 2017 with an expected growth of 32.4%.
The rapid growth of 3D printing has also generated a growing market in bio-printing for tissue engineering applications. This market had an estimated value of $295 million in 2016 with a forecast value of $1.8 billion by 2021.
Technology OverviewThe technology is an enclosed series of “microtanks” that can tune the dosage and the time release of oxygen to a targeted area. It can be shaped to delivery targeted therapeutics to any area or region. It can also be infused with therapeutic gases other than oxygen, and can also be infused with a combination of gases. A controlled delivery system for gases is important is alleviating the bottle-neck in tissue engineering advancement caused by poor oxygen delivery in tissue in vitro. This technology provides a simple and adaptable solution to oxygen delivery. It does so while using inexpensive materials that can be molded to any shape, allowing for the tuning of the dosage and time release of oxygen, and not producing any negative chemical byproducts.
Stage of DevelopmentPrototype built and tuned for different outgassing profiles and tested at different temperatures.
PublicationsCook CA, et. al.Biomaterials. 2015;52:376–384.
