Research on Hypoxia Using PreSens´ Oxygen Microsensors Raises Great Interest
January 26, 2011The publication of Dr. Volkmer and his colleagues from the University of Munich is one of the top cited articles in the journal "Tissue Engineering".
The research group around Dr. Volkmer - part of Experimental Surgery and Regenerative Medicine - focuses on tissue engineering. Patients with damaged tissue or incomplete fracture healing might profit in the future from bone substitute material engineered in vitro. Still up to now it has not been possible to generate bone tissue in clinically relevant extents. With bigger cell-seeded scaffolds gradients in tissue quality emerger. A reason for this might be the inhomogeneous supply of the cells with oxygen. In their study the researchers tried to find out, if cell-seeded scaffolds are generally affected by hypoxia. In different set-ups the oxygen concentration in the center and the surrounding medium of cell-seeded scaffolds was measured using PreSens oxygen microsensors. Oxygen gradients from the center towards outer areas of cell-scaffold constructs could be detected and effects on cell proliferation and differentiation revealed.
"Hypoxia in Static and Dynamic 3D Culture Systems for Tissue Engineering of Bone" being a top cited article reflects the great interest in this topic of research. These basic study results can be used to further enhance methods for tissue engineering. Dr. Volkmer and his research group are continuing their effort to make tissue engineering of bone usable for medern medicine.
