The limitations associated with current treatments for peripheral nerve injuries has warranted researchers to develop alternative forms of treatment. Tissue engineering has been identified as one such alternative to overcome said limitations. At the Tissue Engineering Research Group, Prof Fergal O’Brien and his fellow researchers are developing advanced tissue engineering based therapeutics.
Tissue engineering usually involves the use of what’s known as a bioactive scaffold. In the proposed project, proteins which are both endogenous and natural to the body will be used to enhance these scaffolds. One such protein that is used in the lab for this purpose is laminin: a bioactive protein which is found throughout peripheral nerves and so would not be recognized as foreign if implanted into the body in the form of a scaffold. The function of the scaffold is to provide a template for the regeneration of healthy nerve tissue. The scaffold’s modification will be optimized. For instance, bioactive molecules that have the capacity to instruct specific cells in the tissue to switch into ‘regeneration mode’ in order to heal the tissue will be incorporated into the scaffold. The bioactive scaffold’s performance will be evaluated through a series of experiments and results will suggest what the best scaffold modification will be to enhance its therapeutics application.
