Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering最新文献

With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells and modern differentiation protocols, many advances in our understanding of disease have been made possible by in vitro disease modeling; in some cases, their use may have supplanted animal models. Yet in vitro models often rely on rigid cell culture substrates that could limit our ability to completely reproduce human disease in a dish. Nascent work, however, suggests that the combination of biomaterials and/or advanced microphysiological systems–which better recapitulate tissue properties–with stem cells expressing disease mimicking genetics, could substantially improve current disease modeling efforts where genetics alone is insufficient. This review will highlight such recent advances as well as review current challenges that the fields must overcome to create more personalized therapeutics in the future.

This review focuses on recent findings that cadherins, like integrins, mechanically initiate signaling cascades that can share elements with integrins but have distinct biological functions. Specifically, we focus on evidence that cadherins and receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) form mechano-switches at intercellular junctions that regulate the integrity of barrier tissues, global cell mechanics, and cell proliferation. Epithelial E-cadherin force transduction signaling is further discussed in the context of other cadherin-mediated intercellular signaling that regulates Hippo kinases and YAP localization. This article highlights similarities and differences in force transduction by three, different classical cadherins and argues that cadherins and specific RTK partners constitute general intercellular mechano-switches, with tissue-specific functions. Several examples presented demonstrate the physiological significance of this force activated cadherin/RTK signal transduction mechanism and suggest how mechanically regulated, cadherin-dependent signaling could be harnessed to tune tissue-specific functions.

Somatosensory neuroprostheses are devices with the potential to restore the senses of touch and movement from prosthetic limbs for people with limb amputation or paralysis. By electrically stimulating the peripheral or central nervous system, these devices evoke sensations that appear to emanate from the missing or insensate limb, and when paired with sensors on the prosthesis, they can improve the functionality and embodiment of the prosthesis. There have been major advances in the design of these systems over the past decade, although several important steps remain before they can achieve widespread clinical adoption outside the lab setting. Here, we provide a brief overview of somatosensory neuroprostheses and explores these hurdles and potential next steps towards clinical translation.

Additive manufacturing technologies, especially affordable 3D printers and bioprinters, emerge as sustainability promotion resources, thanks to the possibility of processing green and circular biomaterials from industrial waste, creating value with them. Among industries benefiting from these possibilities, healthcare sector, which takes advantage from the personalization degree of biomedical devices and products achievable through 3D (bio)printing, stands out as socially impactful. Indeed, biomedical devices manufactured with green and circular biomaterials using accessible resources can contribute to achieving equitable and eco-efficient solutions, while generating economic growth and decent work. This is of special relevance for low and middle-income settings, which may benefit from point-of-care production of medical technologies for solving challenging supply chain issues, directly manufacturing open-source solutions from the cloud and employing do-it-yourself materials. In order to generate debate on how to promote the impacts in this area, the current study summarizes research and innovation trends and discusses existing capabilities and challenges. Opinions of authors are presented and supported by an important set of publications and projects focused on healthcare equity and sustainability.

As life expectancy increases and health crises arise, our demand for medical materials is higher than ever. There has been, nevertheless, a concomitant increase in the reliance on traditional fabrication and disposal methods, which are environmentally harmful and energy intensive. Therefore, technologies need adaptations to ensure a more sustainable future for medicine. Such technological improvements could be designed by taking inspiration from nature, where the concept of “waste” is virtually non-existent. These nature-inspired solutions can be engineered into the lifecycle of medical materials at different points, from raw materials and fabrication to application and recycling. To achieve this, we present four technological developments as promising enablers – surface patterning, additive manufacturing, microfluidics, and synthetic biology. For each enabler, we discuss how sustainable solutions can be designed based on current understanding of, and ongoing research on, natural systems or concepts, including shark skin, decentralised manufacturing, process intensification, and synthetic biology.

The advent of computer-aided concepts and cognitive algorithms, along with fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic thoughts, supported the idea of ‘making computers think like people’ (Lotfi A. Zadeh, IEEE Spectrum, 21 (26–32), 1984). Such a school of thought enabled the sophistication of mission-oriented development of biomaterials and biosystems with the aid of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI). Since polysaccharides (PSA) are medically safe and rely on stimuli-responsiveness, we herein highlight the importance of using AI-based algorithms in PSA-based biomedical engineering. Since manufacturing PSA-based biomaterials by AI experiences a very early stage of maturity, pattern recognition and behavior visualization by ‘Machine Learning’ (ML) models are not stressed herein. Nevertheless, exceptional chemical features of PSA such as surface modification and high adaptability facilitate ML-aided innovations. PSA-based biomaterials reveal diverse biomedical properties; therefore, summarizing, sorting, and recalling the best scenarios and optimization of the performance features of PSA still seems far from reach. We just highlight herein PSA-based biomedical engineering by the aid of AI to establish an agenda for the future. Herein, the outlook of targeted drug delivery vehicles, skin tissue engineering templates, wound healing systems, cancer treatment platforms, biosensors, personalized detection complexes, and particularly AI-aided bioprinting are generally covered.

Wound healing is a complex process that requires an appropriate environment to support healing. Wound dressings play a crucial role in wound management by protecting the wound and promoting healing. Recent advancements in wound dressing technology include the development of bio-absorbable electrospun dressings incorporating essential oils, which have shown promise in enhancing wound healing potential. However, there is still a need for sustainable wound dressing technology that is effective, safe, and environmentally friendly. This review addresses this need by emphasizing the potential of bio-absorbable electrospun wound dressings incorporating essential oils and advocating for a paradigm shift toward sustainable crop-origin materials and the elimination of toxic solvents in wound dressing fabrication.

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae are emerging as high-throughput, chemical screening assays for investigating congenital cardiomyopathies. Despite distinct anatomical and genomic differences with humans, zebrafish share a conserved regulatory network of transcription factors modulating heart development with mammals. Consequently, external embryonic fertilization and optical transparency in conjunction with fluorescent reporters localizing endogenous proteins provide an ideal platform for studying molecular mechanisms underlying complex human heart development. In this regard, recent advances in light sheet microscopy (LSM) have enabled non-invasive, in vivo reconstruction of dynamic cardiac biomarkers during early stages of embryonic zebrafish heart development. In this review, we discuss the development of cardiovascular disease progression pipelines using zebrafish and LSM to identify genetic and molecular drivers of human cardiac disease.