Tannlin Research & Development on Cardiac Stencils
Tannlin is working with scientists (headed by Prof. Kevin Shakesheff) within the Wolfson Centre for Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Modelling (STEM), University of Nottingham, UK. Funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) this project is to develop a functional pump engineered from heart tissue derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This proof-of-concept study requires uniformly beating heart cells or cardiomyocytes (CMs) that are circumferentially patterned on a polymeric tube. Tannlin stencils are being used to control the spatial positioning of the CMs to generate maximum output. Our stencils are employed as masks for airbrushing chemicals that promote CM attachment at 10µm resolution. The versatility of Tannlin stencils will be key in achieving faithful and optimized patterning of the CMs and enable new strategies for heart implants to be developed.
