Procedural generation of vascular networks for tissue engineering
type: CreativeWork
description: The greatest challenge in tissue engineering is that of vascularization: tissue constructs at length scales above the diffusive length without embedded perfusable channels will be unable to supply oxygen and nutrients to—or remove waste from—cells within the construct, leading to necrosis. This has historically limited tissue engineering to sub-millimetre lengths; in response, tissue engineers have developed a wealth of manufacturing methods to embed perfusable channels in hydrogel constructs, but there does not currently exist a software package to automatically generate these channel networks subject to manufacturability and cellular survival constraints. This thesis contributes a software package and associated design philosophy for generating vasculature specifically for use in tissue engineering. We first review the current manufacturing landscape and compare this to real vasculature, concluding that the aim of networks designed by our software should be ensuring short-term survival to enable embedded cells to self-assemble into the desired structure, particularly since functionality often requires the transfer of large molecules, with direct cell-capillary contact in vivo. This leads to two input parameters for our software: the critical cell-channel distance for oxygen-limited survival, and the minimum manufacturable feature size. Current methods of designing vasculature for tissue engineering do not scale well and are only suitable for small technology demonstrations: it is impossible to avoid at least one of dead zones, high perfusion pressures and non-uniform flow delivery, and manual intervention in the design is common. Attempting to copy real vasculature is also not suitable: reconstructed scan data is often noisy, incomplete and contains pathologies; further, small chunks of tissue do not have a well-defined single inlet and outlet for connecting to perfusion systems. The only suitable starting point is deemed to be the group of algorithms developed fo…
abstract: The greatest challenge in tissue engineering is that of vascularization: tissue constructs at length scales above the diffusive length without embedded perfusable channels will be unable to supply oxygen and nutrients to—or remove waste from—cells within the construct, leading to necrosis. This has historically limited tissue engineering to sub-millimetre lengths; in response, tissue engineers have developed a wealth of manufacturing methods to embed perfusable channels in hydrogel constructs, but there does not currently exist a software package to automatically generate these channel networks subject to manufacturability and cellular survival constraints. This thesis contributes a software package and associated design philosophy for generating vasculature specifically for use in tissue engineering. We first review the current manufacturing landscape and compare this to real vasculature, concluding that the aim of networks designed by our software should be ensuring short-term survival to enable embedded cells to self-assemble into the desired structure, particularly since functionality often requires the transfer of large molecules, with direct cell-capillary contact in vivo. This leads to two input parameters for our software: the critical cell-channel distance for oxygen-limited survival, and the minimum manufacturable feature size. Current methods of designing vasculature for tissue engineering do not scale well and are only suitable for small technology demonstrations: it is impossible to avoid at least one of dead zones, high perfusion pressures and non-uniform flow delivery, and manual intervention in the design is common. Attempting to copy real vasculature is also not suitable: reconstructed scan data is often noisy, incomplete and contains pathologies; further, small chunks of tissue do not have a well-defined single inlet and outlet for connecting to perfusion systems. The only suitable starting point is deemed to be the group of algorithms developed fo…
author: Guy, Andrew
language: eng
keywords: Tissue Engineering, Vascularization
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/d38bec6e-cf22-412a-ad5f-cc1bdc49f3e4/download
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
date published: 2022-09-01
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:18Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.99690