UK: Grant to develop vascular grafts

Development grant

Tissue Regenix Ltd of Leeds, UK, has has been awarded a £420,000 grant by the UK’s Department of Health through the Health Technology Devices programme to support a three-year £1 million project entitled “Development of small and medium diameter vascular grafts”.

This multidisciplinary collaboration between Tissue Regenix, NHS Blood and Transplant and the Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering at the University of Leeds will address the need for an off-the-shelf supply of grafts for vascular surgery.

Such surgery is performed currently using the patient’s own tissue or with grafts made of synthetic material. Small diameter grafts often become blocked, and 50 percent fail within five years.

The project will combine Tissue Regenix’s tissue processing and decellularisation technologies with the tissue banking and processing expertise of NHS Blood and Transplant and the tissue engineering expertise of Leeds University’s Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering to develop small- and medium-diameter vascular grafts manufactured from biocompatible, immunocompatible biological scaffolds.

The grafts will have similar biomechanical properties to the replaced tissue, allowing them to function normally as soon as they are implanted. Most importantly, they will then rapidly regenerate inside the body.

Tissue Regenix was founded in May 2006 as a spin-out from Leeds University to exploit innovative platform technologies in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The company claims its biological scaffolds are unique because they behave and function just like the native tissue in almost every way. They are compatible with all blood and cell types, do not calcify and have similar biomechanical properties to the replaced tissue, allowing them to function as soon as they are implanted..

Tissue Regenix is jointly owned by the University of Leeds, IP Group plc and White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund.