Rapid vascularization with blood vessels is of vital importance for in vivo survival and function of tissue-engineered grafts of clinically relevant size.
Furthermore, blood vessels also directly regulate the proliferation and differentiation of tissue progenitors through the release of so-called angiocrine factors. This webinar will briefly overview some key aspects of the biology of angiogenesis and discuss bio-inspired technological approaches for therapeutic translation.
A particular focus will be given on factor-decorated biomaterials to engineer instructive microenvironments, which could be exploited both for the generation of in vitro vascularized organoids and for the rapid in vivo vascularization of 3D tissue engineered grafts.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Nunzia Di Maggio graduated in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (2003) at the University of Bologna (Italy) and obtained her PhD in Experimental Medicine (2009) from the University of Basel (Switzerland). As a postdoc in the group of Tissue Engineering, she investigated the biology of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), identifying key regulators of MSC self-renewal and their implications for bone regeneration and tissue engineering.
From 2015 she is a Senior Scientist in the Regenerative Angiogenesis group at Basel University Hospital, investigating biology-inspired and biomaterial-based approaches to combine rapid vascularization and efficient bone formation for regenerative medicine.