Biomedical technology has opened up possibilities of treating the failure of internal organs, such as kidney and liver by artificial organ therapy. Most of these techniques are based on polymer membranes, which allow the removal of excess of water, salts and toxins from the circulation. However, hemodialysis for the replacement of kidney function results in an increased morbidity and mortality of patients after long-term application. Conventional therapy, such as hemofiltration for the treatment of acute liver failure does not improve significantly the survival rate of patients. Biohybrid organ support as a combination of the artificial organ therapy with the functional activity of immobilized cells seems to be a solution of the problem. One of the drawbacks of contemporary biohybrid organ technology is the short lifetime of these devices. A possible reason for this problem is the artificial membrane support that does not sufficiently remodel the natural environment of cells as in the organ. Organ cells in biohybrid organs have to make an intimate contact with the surface of the membrane but must also develop close cell-cell-connections, which are a prerequisite for their survival and high functional activity. On the other hand the blood, which has to be detoxified will contact the other side of the membrane and may not become activated by the synthetic material. We have developed new polymer membranes to address the above mentioned requirements by a number of approaches namely to tailor the composition of copolymers based on acrylonitrile (ⅰ), the combination of blood and tissue compatible polymers in a specific spinning process creating bilayer membranes (ⅱ), or the application of a specific hollow fibre design with an outer fibre for blood contact, and an inner fibre for tissue contact or vice versa (ⅲ).
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