Tissue Engineering
Tissue Engineering
Curing Children with Heart Disease Using Their Own Cells
Tissue Engineering
Tissue engineering holds incredible potential for repairing birth defects, allowing a child’s own cells to be used to “grow” new tissue or organs for repair. This program has the potential to drastically minimize complications that arise from the current need to use synthetic materials in surgery, including lack of growth capacity, blood clotting, increased risk of infection and poor durability.
Our Team
Nationwide Children’s Tissue Engineering Program leaders, Christopher Breuer, MD, and Toshiharu Shinoka, MD, PhD, were the first in the world to tissue engineer blood vessels and implant them in human infants for repair of congenital heart defects. Now, Nationwide Children’s is home to the first FDA-approved U.S. human trial to investigate the safety and effectiveness of using tissue engineering to repair congenital heart defects.
In the News
- Cardinal Health Donates $1 Million to Nationwide Children’s Hospital Supporting the Work of its Tissue Engineering Program
- Tissue from the lab mends a broken heart
- Preeminent Tissue Engineering Team to Establish Program at Nationwide Children's Hospital