Tissue
Repair

• Scaffold-Driven Tissue Engineering
• Engineering Silk

Scaffold-Driven Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is the process of providing a scaffold—a mechanical support structure—with living cells coupled with a growth environment to support the development of functional tissue.

Connective tissue, such as skin, fascia, ligament, and tendon, is the structural matter of the body which connects and contains its many bones and organs. This tissue is mainly comprised of collagen, the most common structural protein of the body, plus living cells which can repair the protein network if damaged.

Serica, in collaboration with Tufts University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, developed the Seri™ and SeriGel™ silk-based biomaterial platforms to overcome the lack of mechanical integrity of collagen-based scaffolds intended to support adult stem cell growth in a bioreactor. Upon doing so, the company learned that in addition to strength, its revolutionary silk protein scaffolds were remarkably effective at supporting the growth of functional native ligaments and tendons in pre-clinical trials following implantation in the body. As a result, the company learned to leverage the patient’s own internal tissue repair machinery to engineer new tissue while bioresorbing the initial scaffold no longer needed. This technique utilizes the body’s own healing and remodeling cascades which follow surgical implantation of any tissue or device.

By providing a structural “form” or scaffold which anticipates the biological function of tissue repair which follows implantation, “engineered tissues” with excellent biological, structural and functional integrity can be developed by the body itself following the scaffold’s initial impetus—an accomplishment which can now be attained through the use of Serica’s innovative Seri and SeriGel biomaterial platforms.