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There are currently over 1.85 million breast implants performed per annum globally at a total value of $2.76 billion with the NHS alone spending £52.5 million. Over 400,000 women per annum need to undergo invasive breast removal surgery due to cancer and suffer tissue loss. Synthetic breast reconstruction, often done at the same time, can also pose significant issues such as scarring and breast implant associated lymphoma which then require further surgical intervention.
A significant innovation alongside breast implants since 2005 is Acellular Dermal Matrices (ADM).
ADMs are soft connective tissue grafts that can be prepared from human or animal tissue via a
decellularization process that preserves the intact extracellular skin matrix. However they are often
thin and do not form an effective natural breast.
Engineered organoids incorporated into hydrogel scaffolds with artificial vascularization that mimic
the human extracellular matrix (ECM) can provide a viable solution for replacement of breast tissue after significant tissue loss without the issues associated with the aforementioned treatments.
The one pot synthesis method was used to synthesize Gelatin Methacrylate. Whilst hexagonal shaped pluronic filaments were printed onto glass slides using the robotic I&J 7300-LF printer (Fishnar, UK). Adipose derived stem cells (Thermofisher) were differentiated into adipocytes whilst being embedded within the GelMa structure. The differentiation was assessed using the oil red O stain. Further experimentation looks at the cell-cell interaction and endothelialisation of HUVECS (PromoCell, UK).
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