Biomedical engineers recently created a miniature device composed of blood vessels, a valve that induces a “wound,” and the flow of blood to recapitulate the wound healing process seen during injury in humans. They used the human-based system to understand the role of several key-clotting factors for blood clot formation.
The system helped the scientists to determine the defects causing excessive bleeding in hemophilia-A patients, as well as, to assess the specific effects of blood clotting drugs. Thus, the model can be used:1. as a screening tool for drugs to modulate human wound healing, 2. a diagnostic tool to identify patients with bleeding disorders, and 3. a personalized medicine tool to determine the optimal individualized drug treatments to modulate clotting.
Unlike previous models which only simulate one aspect of the wound healing process, this system reproduces all components of the human small blood vessel injury and repair process.
Sakurai Y, Hardy ET, Ahn B, et al. A microengineered vascularized bleeding model that integrates the principal components of hemostasis. Nat Commun. 2018;9:509. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-02990-x.