Off-the-shelf collagenous tissue engineering
products
A variety of high potential collagen tissue engineering products for multiple clinical applications are being developed. Modern tissue engineering approaches will be used to treat children with structural birth disorders, such as spina bifida, urogenital defects, gastroschisis, diaphragmatic hernia and esophageal atresia. The multidisciplinary project strives to take a translational route through in vitro and animal experiments to early clinical trials. This will be done by the use of tailor-made "smart" biomatrices (scaffolds) that are prepared using natural scaffold molecules such as type I collagen. Recently, a platform is created for the development of collagen tissue engineering scaffolds for bladder augmentation (i.e. bladder cancer), treatment of hypospadia and epispadia, and application as urostomy.
Highly-purified type I collagen can be obtained from several sources such as tendon, skin and/or pericardium. From the latter, collagen fleece can be made which is already on the market as Jason® and applied to minor wounds in implantology, periodontology and oral surgery.
Outstanding product features:
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natural molecule
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highly biocompatible
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resorbable to the body
- differently shaped and sized for various clinical applications:
» flat (Vesicoll®), for bladder augmentation
» tubular small diameter (Tubecoll®), for urethra replacement (hypospadia,
epispadia
» tubular large diameter (Divecoll®), as urostomy.
