Biomaterials Approaches for Disease Modeling

A special issue of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354). This special issue belongs to the section "Regenerative Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2021) | Viewed by 11159

Special Issue Editor

Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Interests: hydrogel cell culture platforms; protein-engineered biomaterials; polymer chemistry; disease modeling; neural tissue engineering; muscle stem cell biolog
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in modern biology are enabling unprecedented insights into the underlying mechanisms of disease, employing technologies ranging from multi-omics approaches for characterizing biochemical signaling pathways to patient-specific in vitro assays utilizing cells differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells. There is tremendous opportunity to develop novel engineered systems that leverage these advancements in biology to better recapitulate diseased cellular phenotypes “in a dish”. Such ex vivo approaches stand to realize the goals of personalized medicine, for instance, by enabling individualized drug toxicology assessments, improving drug screening to accelerate identification of promising drug candidates, and increasing the inclusion of underrepresented and underserved populations in pre-clinical drug development.

This Special Issue on “Biomaterials Approaches for Disease Modeling” will focus on original research papers and comprehensive reviews covering the use of engineered materials systems to recapitulate key aspects of diseased tissue in vitro. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Three-dimensional culture of patient-derived organoids to model monogenic diseases, cancer, or infection.
  2. Development of microphysiological systems to model and characterize disease phenotypes.
  3. 2D and 3D approaches to direct morphogenesis of stem cell-derived microtissues, such as photolithographic patterning and 3D printing/additive manufacturing.
  4. Novel chemical approaches to build complex cellular microenvironments.
  5. Stimuli responsive materials to mimic disease progression in vitro.
  6. Development of preclinical drug screening platforms with improved predictive ability and/or reproducibility.

We look forward to receiving your contributions to this Special Issue.

Dr. Christopher M. Madl
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Bioengineering is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biomaterials
  • disease modeling
  • microphysiological systems
  • organoids
  • drug screening
  • patient-derived cells
  • induced pluripotent stem cells
  • additive manufacturing

Published Papers (3 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

15 pages, 1853 KiB  
Article
Functionalizing Fibrin Hydrogels with Thermally Responsive Oligonucleotide Tethers for On-Demand Delivery
by Chase S. Linsley, Kevin Sung, Cameron White, Cara A. Abecunas, Bill J. Tawil and Benjamin M. Wu
Bioengineering 2022, 9(1), 25; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/bioengineering9010025 - 10 Jan 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1718
Abstract
There are a limited number of stimuli-responsive biomaterials that are capable of delivering customizable dosages of a therapeutic at a specific location and time. This is especially true in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, where it may be desirable for the stimuli-responsive [...] Read more.
There are a limited number of stimuli-responsive biomaterials that are capable of delivering customizable dosages of a therapeutic at a specific location and time. This is especially true in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, where it may be desirable for the stimuli-responsive biomaterial to also serve as a scaffolding material. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to engineer a traditionally non-stimuli responsive scaffold biomaterial to be thermally responsive so it could be used for on-demand drug delivery applications. Fibrin hydrogels are frequently used for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, and they were functionalized with thermally labile oligonucleotide tethers using peptides from substrates for factor XIII (FXIII). The alpha 2-plasmin inhibitor peptide had the greatest incorporation efficiency out of the FXIII substrate peptides studied, and conjugates of the peptide and oligonucleotide tethers were successfully incorporated into fibrin hydrogels via enzymatic activity. Single-strand complement oligo with either a fluorophore model drug or platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) could be released on demand via temperature increases. These results demonstrate a strategy that can be used to functionalize traditionally non-stimuli responsive biomaterials suitable for on-demand drug delivery systems (DDS). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomaterials Approaches for Disease Modeling)
Show Figures

Figure 1

11 pages, 3726 KiB  
Article
adipoSIGHT in Therapeutic Response: Consequences in Osteosarcoma Treatment
by Banani Kundu, Virginia Brancato, Joaquim Oliveira, Vitor M. Correlo, Rui L. Reis and Subhas C. Kundu
Bioengineering 2021, 8(6), 83; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/bioengineering8060083 - 10 Jun 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3270
Abstract
Chemotherapeutic resistance is a major problem in effective cancer treatment. Cancer cells engage various cells or mechanisms to resist anti-cancer therapeutics, which results in metastasis and the recurrence of disease. Considering the cellular heterogeneity of cancer stroma, the involvement of stem cells is [...] Read more.
Chemotherapeutic resistance is a major problem in effective cancer treatment. Cancer cells engage various cells or mechanisms to resist anti-cancer therapeutics, which results in metastasis and the recurrence of disease. Considering the cellular heterogeneity of cancer stroma, the involvement of stem cells is reported to affect the proliferation and metastasis of osteosarcoma. Hence, the duo (osteosarcoma: Saos 2 and human adipose-derived stem cells: ASCs) is co-cultured in present study to investigate the therapeutic response using a nonadherent, concave surface. Staining with a cell tracker allows real-time microscopic monitoring of the cell arrangement within the sphere. Cell–cell interaction is investigated by means of E-cadherin expression. Comparatively high expression of E-cadherin and compact organization is observed in heterotypic tumorspheres (Saos 2–ASCs) compared to homotypic ones (ASCs), limiting the infiltration of chemotherapeutic compound doxorubicin into the heterotypic tumorsphere, which in turn protects cells from the toxic effect of the chemotherapeutic. In addition, genes known to be associated with drug resistance, such as SOX2, OCT4, and CD44 are overexpressed in heterotypic tumorspheres post-chemotherapy, indicating that the duo collectively repels the effect of doxorubicin. The interaction between ASCs and Saos 2 in the present study points toward the growing oncological risk of using ASC-based regenerative therapy in cancer patients and warrants further investigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomaterials Approaches for Disease Modeling)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

24 pages, 2436 KiB  
Review
Organ on Chip Technology to Model Cancer Growth and Metastasis
by Giorgia Imparato, Francesco Urciuolo and Paolo Antonio Netti
Bioengineering 2022, 9(1), 28; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/bioengineering9010028 - 11 Jan 2022
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5058
Abstract
Organ on chip (OOC) has emerged as a major technological breakthrough and distinct model system revolutionizing biomedical research and drug discovery by recapitulating the crucial structural and functional complexity of human organs in vitro. OOC are rapidly emerging as powerful tools for oncology [...] Read more.
Organ on chip (OOC) has emerged as a major technological breakthrough and distinct model system revolutionizing biomedical research and drug discovery by recapitulating the crucial structural and functional complexity of human organs in vitro. OOC are rapidly emerging as powerful tools for oncology research. Indeed, Cancer on chip (COC) can ideally reproduce certain key aspects of the tumor microenvironment (TME), such as biochemical gradients and niche factors, dynamic cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions, and complex tissue structures composed of tumor and stromal cells. Here, we review the state of the art in COC models with a focus on the microphysiological systems that host multicellular 3D tissue engineering models and can help elucidate the complex biology of TME and cancer growth and progression. Finally, some examples of microengineered tumor models integrated with multi-organ microdevices to study disease progression in different tissues will be presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomaterials Approaches for Disease Modeling)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop