Peer-reviewed articles have suggested that engineering blood vessels in tissues have the potential to revolutionize tissue replacement for congenital defects and diseased tissues [5]. In addition to tissue replacement, the prevascularized 3D constructs also have the potential to mimic breast cancer environments for breast cancer drug development. Therefore, we have successfully created 3D volumes of biomaterials exceeding the diffusion distance of oxygen by prevascularizing these biomaterials. In the case of bacterial cellulose, we have created endothelialized micro-channels. In the case of fibrin, we have created micro-channels and grown a multi-culture of cells (breast cancer cells and fibroblasts) within the scaffold. These results set the stage for highly defined 3D tissue volumes that are perfused and can be used for the evaluation of anti-cancer therapies using primary human cell lines or cells extracted from breast cancer patients.
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