Engineered Bone Marrow
In order to study abnormalities in born marrow—leading to leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, Swiss researchers in Basel and Zurich created a bioreactor that, for a few days, can carry out hematopoiesis. Quoting directly: “The researchers have developed an artificial tissue that mimics some of the complex biological properties of natural bone marrow niches. To do this, they combined human mesenchymal stromal cells with a porous, bone-like 3D scaffold made of a ceramic material in what is known as a perfusion bioreactor, which was used to combine biological and synthetic materials. This gave rise to a structure covered with a stromal extracellular matrix embedding blood cells. In this respect, the artificial tissue had a very similar molecular structure to natural bone marrow niches, creating an environment in which the functionality of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells could largely be maintained.” MORE
Image Credit: University of Basel