Zellbiologie und Tissue Engineering
Investigator: Dr.-Ing. Rainer Detsch (Akademischer Rat)
Ulrich-Schalk-Straße 3
91056 Erlangen
Raum: 01.116
Tel.: 09131 85-69611
email: rainer.detsch@fau.de
Biomaterial - Biosystem interactions
Worldwide, there is a growing need for novel biomaterials to repair or replace diseased or damaged living tissues. One of the main topics in the development of these biomaterials is the understanding of interactions between material and biosystem. These interactions are extraordinary complex and strongly influenced by the implantation site (hard or soft tissue, blood contact, etc.). The Cell biology and Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Institute of Biomaterials in the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg investigates these biomaterial - biosystem interactions. Besides biocompatibility, the controlled degradation of biomaterials (e.g. activation of osteoclasts for bone substitute materials) carries great importance. Another point of interest is the special functionality of drug delivery systems in regenerative medicine.
Bone tissue engineering
The main focus of current investigations is on bone tissue engineering. The goal of bone tissue engineering is to generate in vitro tissue specific constructs for implantation. For this, scaffolds are incubated with bone marrow stromal cells in static or dynamic conditions (bioreactor). The stem cell properties are verified by analysing various differentiation path ways, i.e. chondrogenic, adipogenic and osteogenic. In this context, the objectives of our work are to seed cells homogeneously in 3D-scaffolds and subsequently analyse cell growth and cell differentiation. The expertise gained from this work is used for further investigations with novel 3D-scaffolds developed at the Institute.
Vascularisation is important for the application of bone tissue engineered constructs in vivo. In this regard we investigate the behaviour of micro vascular endothelial cells in direct and indirect contact with different scaffold materials.
Osteochondral Tissue Engineering
The repair of cartilage defects is closely related to bone regeneration. With inorganic - organic composite constructs we will establish osteoblast - chondrocyte cultivation in a coculture system for an osteochondral therapy.
