Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Although stem cells (SC) represent a powerful new approach for restituting organs and tissues injured by trauma or disease, their use largely anticipates the deliberate delivery or homing of these cells to target tissues and does not as often involve regenerating supportive structures which could represent tissue replacements. The creation of biocompatible 3D‐printed tissue designs, the use of matrix‐casting and the incorporation of programmatic molecular‐environmental cues may help move the field of SC tissue replacement towards ‘ready‐made/on‐demand’ originated from either patient SC or from specifically engineered SC. Vascular prostheses represent an important, novel and widely applicable use for stem‐cell scaffold generation. We are optimizing the use of printed resorbable polyvinyl alcohol supports with matrix casting to generate ‘vessels’ which when seeded with vascular–lineage cells mature over a period of days into replicant ‘vessels’ which progressively increase in tensile strength. The dimensions of these vessels can be ‘programmed’ in terms of its final length, diameter and wall thickness by varying scaffold composition and by varying the initial cell seeding densities in these constructs and by medium formulations. Perhaps most importantly, unlike many conventional cell printing technologies, the current approach does not require printing materials to be sterile until final stages of assembly permitting a wider spectrum of more complex designs.</jats:p>