Vessels with electrical stimulation

Electronic blood vessels have been created

Maria Krivochenko, Naked Science

They are flexible and biodegradable, and also mimic the structure of natural vessels. The development has already been successfully tested on rabbits and is planned to be used in the future for the recovery of patients after surgery.

Drawings from the article in Matter.

Researchers from China and Switzerland took a membrane from a metal polymer conductor they had developed earlier and folded it, placing it in a small transparent tube. As a result, they managed to obtain a flexible, biodegradable, electronic analogue of a natural blood vessel with a similar structure. The test results are published in the journal Matter (Cheng et al., Electronic Blood Vessel).

Preliminary experiments on an artificial wound model showed that electrical stimulation of the created blood vessels improved the proliferation and migration of endothelial cells to the healing site and can contribute to the formation of new endothelial tissue of natural vessels. Scientists also noticed that the introduction of the device together with electroporation successfully delivers colored proteins to blood vessels in the laboratory.

The device was then tested on rabbits by replacing their carotid arteries.

For three months, the team observed how electronic vessels work in the circulatory system. It turned out that the development provides sufficient blood flow throughout the entire period, and artificial arteries function as well as natural ones and without serious deformation. After removing the implants, the scientists analyzed the condition of the animals' internal organs and found no signs of inflammation.

Preparation of the electronic vessel and its condition in three months.

Despite the fact that the tests on rabbits were successful, scientists still have a lot of work to do to modernize the vessels before human trials begin: among other things, it is necessary to check the safety of the device on different animals and assess its durability. Now specialists are going to optimize the development for communication with small electronics, such as batteries and integrated control systems, in order to be able to implant all parts of the device and make them completely decomposable inside the body.

According to the authors of the study, their device will cope with the limitations of conventional tissue-engineered structures, which do not contribute well to the regeneration of blood vessels and, unlike natural tissues, often cause inflammation. "None of the existing small-diameter structures meets the requirements for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases," said the author of the work, Xinyu Jiang, an employee of the Southern University of Science and Technology and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in China.

The team hopes that someday this technology will help patients recover quickly after surgery and it may be combined with artificial intelligence to collect data on human blood flow rate, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

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