Slices of life

A team from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have
worked out how to grow 3D tissue grafts (WO 99/48541). Thin slices of porous
“scaffold” material are seeded with cells which grow into a layer around a
quarter of a millimetre thick. Biodegradable nuts and bolts link the slices
together so that the tissue grows into a 3D shape ready for transplant. The
joints disintegrate as the tissue bonds with the patient’s own tissue. You can
make scaffold slices from different materials: hypoxyapatite for bone cells, and
collagen, say, for muscles or tendons.