Vascular Tissue Engineering

AIM:   Develop novel and alternative vascular grafts for clinical applications
     
OUTLINE:   Acellular and cell-based stable or biodegradable synthetic or biological scaffolds for in vitro or in vivo vascular tissue engineering
     
PROPOSERS:  
Chair:   Joris I. ROTMANS, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
Vice Chairs:  

Toshiharu SHINOKA, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Colombus, USA

Deling KONG, Nankai University, Tianjin, China
Secretaries:  

Xiumei MO, Donghua University, Shanghai, China

Timonth PENNEL, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Past Chair:   Beat H. WALPOTH, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

 
     
ENDORSERS:  

Gary BOWLIN, Memphis, USA
Axel HAVERICH, Hannover, Germany
Sotiris KOROSSIS, Hannover, Germany 
Shulamit LEVENBERG, Haifa, Israel
Nicolas l’HEUREUX, Bordeaux, France
Song LI, Los Angeles, USA
Laura NIKLASON, New Haven, USA
Heinz REDL, Vienna, Austria
William WAGNER, Pittsburgh, USA
Anthony WEISS, Sydney, Australia
Peter ZILLA, Cape Town, South Africa
     
ACTIVITIES:  

Rotating among the 3 Geographical areas of TERMIS:

  • Organizing dedicated sessions at the annual TERMIS meeting
  • Holding the bi-annual international symposium on Vascular Tissue Engineering
  • Teaching activities and exchange of young researchers interested in the field of Vascular Tissue Engineering
     

SUMMARY
Cardiovascular diseases are still the leading cause of death in developed countries.  Revascularization procedures such as coronary artery and peripheral bypass grafts, as well as access surgery represent a major global medical need.

Despite intense research over many decades, no clinically suitable, shelf-ready, synthetic, vascular, small-caliber graft exists. There is therefore still a quest for such a clinical vascular prosthesis for surgical revascularization procedures and access surgery for dialysis patients.

Many approaches have been tried and are currently under investigation with promising results.  These range from acellular and cell-based, stable or bio-degradable, synthetic scaffolds to biological or decellularized grafts, not forgetting self-assembly technologies for in vitro or in vivo VTE.  All these approaches can be further enhanced by functionalization, e.g. with growth factors and drug elution. 

The TERMIS Thematic Group on VTE will cover different aspects of manufacturing scaffolds with various polymers, mechanical characteristics, degradation rates, decellularization techniques, cell sheet assembly, 3-D printing and autologous mandril-based VTE. All the necessary in vitro tests such as biocompatibility, thrombogenicity and pre-clinical assessment of in vivo experimental models e.g. patency, compliance, intimal hyperplasia, inflammatory reaction, cellular ingrowth and remodeling will be addressed in our Thematic Group.  Finally, clinical trials, regulatory aspects and post-marketing quality assessment will play an important role.

This TERMIS Thematic Group will organize a bi-annual, international symposium on Vascular Tissue Engineering in order to gather basic scientists and clinicians to foster the new developments and alternatives for developing better vascular grafts for clinical applications.

Further to this, our Thematic Group will take part and organize a session in the various TERMIS annual meetings and give the opportunity to young researchers to consider exchanges in centres actively involved in vascular tissue engineering.  Concomitantly, a Springer Reference e-book on Vascular Tissue Engineering will be published with the support of TERMIS and continuously updated.