Original story from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel). An implantable tissue flap containing muscle and fat alongside a hierarchical network of blood and lymphatic vessels could offer hope for patients with severe tissue damage. An international research team led by the Levenberg Laboratory in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel) has succeeded in developing a first-of-its-kind, three-dimensional implant that combines muscle and fat tissues, a lymphatic network and a hierarchical blood vessel network. The researchers’ findings were published in Cell Biomaterials. The current standard treatment for significant tissue loss is harvesting an autologous flap – tissue taken from a healthy area of the patient’s own body – and transplanting it to the damaged site. This approach is used because transplanting tissue from another person leads to immune rejection and associated complications. The new development, therefore, offers an important solution for substantial tissue loss. According to Shulamit Levenberg, head of the research group, “Our development represents a significant step toward the production of complex implantable tissues for cases involving loss of muscle and fat tissue due to injuries, burns, tumor resection and more. The technology presented in the paper may, in the future, enable the production of personalized flaps tailored to the specific characteristics of an individual patient’s injury.” A flap is an implant that contains a hierarchical vascular system, a dramatic advantage in terms of integration with the damaged site of implantation. Without such a system, the implant does not immediately receive…
