Sometimes tissue in our body can no longer repair itself. That is why we are working hard on biomaterials that can help with this. Just: how do you get that material to speak in the right language?
A lot is already possible in this area. For example, patches for the skin or for bones that help with damage that cannot be repaired by our own body or with medicines. In order to make this possible for even more organs and tissues, the biomaterial that is used for this must learn to communicate even better with our cells.
You can think of that biomaterial that is placed in the body as the skeleton of a building. Included are construction workers and contractors who help our cells to make that building whole again. Not only do our cells have to accept and understand that biomaterial, when the cells talk back, the biomaterial also has to understand what is meant.
There’s a lot of work going into that now. Also in sending personal trainers. Then it is no longer just a construction site, but also a gym in which – depending on the type of tissue or cell – a different training program is offered. And all this in order to eventually be able to repair damage that still has to be solved with, for example, a transplant.
In this audio you can hear researcher Lorenzo Moroni of the MERLN Institute of Maastricht University. You can find more about his work here: Biofabrication for Regenerative Medicine.