A tissue paper (green) supports the growth of an ovarian follicle (purple) in this SEM imageADAM JAKUS/NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITYAn accidental spill in the lab has led to the development of bioactive “tissue papers” that could act as a scaffold to grow cells and repair wounds. Described August 7 in Advanced Functional Materials, the cellular scaffolds are the first of their kind to be organ-specific, and researchers have made six different kinds.
Materials engineer Adam Jakus, a postdoc at Northwestern University, discovered the scaffolds after spilling a 3-D printable ovary ink, which is made of decellularized ovarian tissue. He’d previously developed similar materials to repair and regenerate bone, muscle, and nerve tissue. “I knew the spill would be easier to clean up if I let the ink dry,” he tells The Scientist in a phone interview. When Jakus went to wipe up the dried ink, he found it had spread and hardened into a thin, pliable, yet durable sheet.
Having worked in the past with surgeons on biomaterials, Jakus thought the flexibility and stability of the “tissue paper” had the potential to be used in surgeries, wound healing and possibly cell growth. He decided to try to ...
