A research team at the University of Illinois says it’s developed a bioprinted cardiac tissue that can be remotely stimulated by light.

A figure from the paper, illustrating the experimental setup and heart rate measurements before, during and after stimulation. [Photo Credit: Cunjiang Yu]

Cunjiang Yu, a founder professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his group had their work published in Science Advances. The findings outline the bioprinted tissue stimulated by light in an experimental demonstration of the tissue’s use to manipulate a rat’s heart rate.

Yu says that medical stimulation of internal tissues isn’t new, according to a post on the Illinois website. Examples include the stimulation of muscle tissue to treat pain or of brain tissue to treat neurological conditions. However, those require invasive hardware, such as a wire or pin, penetrating the body, says Yu.

The team aimed to find a way to manipulate tissue remotely by using light or some other type of electromagnetic waves. In this method, they’d need neither invasive probes or genetic modification. The team believes the bioprinted cardiac tissue can achieve this.

Their approach utilized hydrogel inks, combining bioprinting with functional components to form a specialized ink suspension. According to the team, this opens the door to the creation of tissues that support medical interventions.

Specifically, the team mixed micro-solar sells into ink then used to print “scaffold” structures. These can bond onto target living tissue surface. In their experiment, the target surface was the heart of a live rat under sedation. The researchers demonstrated the ability to successfully manipulate the rat’s heart rate by stimulating the scaffold via exposure to light.

According to the paper, potential medical applications of the cardiac scaffold include replacing damaged tissue followed by modulation. This could restore normal beating to an injured heart. The team believes it could support recovery from stroke or to treat or prevent ventricular tachycardia. Additionally, they think light-activated bioprinted tissues could also work for parts of the body other than the heart.

“This is probably one of the first works in this field, and we continue to work on it,” Yu says. “I think that this could really create a lot of new opportunities, a new field, for this community.”

Source:MDO