Cells and materials to grow tissues and organs

Cells and materials to grow tissues and organs

The liver regeneration, depicted in the Prometheus narration, is often taken as an example of the potential ability of the human body to repair and regenerate damaged tissue and organs. This happens for the amputated leg of salamanders and lizards, or for the claws of crabs, however not in mammals.

Damages and diseases often require the application of a prosthesis or the transplantation of an organ from another individual or from a cadaver, with obvious limitations: possible failure for prostheses, risk of rejection, shortage of donors and the fact that a life is saved thanks to a death for transplants.
Nowadays tissues can be regenerated with the combined use of cells of the patient, cultivated on and in biodegradable materials with tailored chemistry, physical properties and architecture. In the right conditions, cells will be able to build the target tissue for the later implantation.

In this Open Talk professor Claudio Migliaresi describes the activities in this field, named Tissue Engineering, at the BIOtech center of the University of Trento.

Claudio Migliaresi is the founder of the BIOtech research center, currently Emeritus professor at the University of Trento.

The talk is in Italian.

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