Biodegradable artery graft could change bypass practice

The new method, developed at the University of Pittsburgh, could give bypass patients a regenerated artery with no trace of synthetic graft materials left in the body within 90 days.

The work was led by principal investigator Yadong Wang, a professor in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery, who designed grafts that fully harness the body’s regenerative capacity. It was published in online in Nature Medicine highlights on 24 June.

According to a statement, this new approach is a philosophical shift from the predominant cell-centred approaches in tissue engineering of blood vessels.

‘The host site, the artery in this case, is an excellent source of cells and provides a very efficient growth environment,’ said Wang. ‘This is what inspired us to skip the cell culture altogether and create these cell-free synthetic grafts.’

Wang and fellow researchers, Wei Wu, a former Pitt postdoctoral associate, and Robert Allen, a PhD student in bioengineering, are said to have designed the graft with three properties in mind.