Abstract:
Blood vessels exhibit a range of structural and functional differences, contain a range of matrices and even specialized accessory cells that align with the specific needs of the tissue in which they reside. To study and recapitulate the highly complex behavior of blood vessels, we explore the three-dimensional (3D) assembly of microvascular networks (MVNs) from multiple cells in vitro. Using a three-channel microfluidic device design we co-cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) with either normal human lung fibroblasts (NHLFs), pericytes (PCs), smooth muscle cells (SMCs), or both PCs and SMCs in 3mg/mL fibrin gels and measured their assembly dynamics, morphology, length scales, branching, and tortuosity over time. Results find that HUVECs cultured with both human SMCs and human PCs generate the smallest MVNs ~30mm in diameter that are also stable for over 2 months. Furthermore, after 21 days, these MVNs began exhibiting angiogenic activity. To our knowledge, this is the longest demonstrated stability and the first example of the generation of perfusable microvasculature enabling an initial vasculogenesis phase, a stability phase, and then subsequent angiogenesis activity
Biography:
Dr. Kara E. McCloskey, PhD, is a Founding Professor at the University of California, Merced in the Chemical and Materials Engineering (CME) Department and Fellow with the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE). She received her degrees in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University and Biomedical Engineering Department at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation and was an NIH-NRSA postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology. Early in her career, Dr. McCloskey was awarded a New Faculty Award from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is the Program Directors for a CIRM-funded Training Program in Undergraduate Stem Cell Engineering and Biology (TUSCEB) and the UC Merced Shared Resource Facility (SRL). She has been Founder and Chair of Graduate Program in Biological Engineering and Small-scale Technologies (BEST) and Materials and Biomaterials Science and Engineering (MBSE), and lead developer for UCM’s new B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. Dr. McCloskey has participated in numerous NSF-funded research centers (CREST-CCBM, STC-CEMB, STC-EBICS and ERC-TARDISS). She is known for her work in directing and characterizing endothelial cells (EC) from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced-pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. She has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles in areas from magnetic cell separation, stem cell differentiation, and tissue assembly and is currently focusing her efforts examining cell-material interactions for developing functional tissues.
