Engineering a Biomimetic Adventitia to Model Fibrosis in a Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessel

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the global leading cause of death. CVD is commonly caused by fibrosis, or the stiffening of arterial vessel walls. While arterial fibrosis has several pathophysiologies, the outermost vessel layer, the tunica adventitia, has gained interest as a critical player in arterial fibrosis. Due to the simplicity and lack of tunability of existing fibrosis models, it remains difficult to understand the significance of the adventitia in fibrosis development. Thus, there exists a need to create an in vitro model of the adventitia to better understand its role in the development of vascular fibrosis. Towards this end, this project includes working in the Chaikof Lab to optimize the fabrication of the adventitial layer itself and its incorporation into the current TEBV model. On a larger scale, the goals of this project are to use a tri-layered TEBV to study arterial fibrosis in vitro and screen anti-fibrotic drug candidates.