Bhussry Seminar Series: “Spatial Engineering of Salivary Epithelia through Biofabrication”
Presentation: “Spatial Engineering of Salivary Epithelia through Biofabrication”
Speaker:
Daniel Harrington, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Diagnostic & Biomedical Sciences
School of Dentistry
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
About This Seminar:
For patients with head-and-neck cancers, radiation therapy (RT) is a standard treatment. Although highly effective at treating disease, RT inevitably causes secondary damage to the adjacent salivary glands (SG), leading to progressive and permanent loss of saliva production within the weeks of treatment. The resultant sensation of xerostomia — or extreme “dry mouth” — and the measurable hyposalivation, is a direct result of irrecoverable damage to the salivary acini, which generate both the fluid and enzymes in saliva. Quality of life is significantly decreased by impacts on speech, digestion, and health of the oral cavity.
Restoration of a functional SG is a challenging target, as the glands are highly branched epithelia, with multiple differentiated cell types and thin layers. 3D culture of primary SG epithelial cells in bulk hydrogels does not produce branched structures readily, and common extrusion-based bioprinting methods lose spatial stability with soft hydrogels. Our laboratory approaches these issues by using coaxial microfluidic bioprinting, FRESH support bath printing, and multiphoton-based subtractive patterning to spatially position salivary epithelia and associated fibroblasts in thin, adjacent hydrogel layers. Employing these methods, with customized hydrogels and primary human cells, advances our opportunity to restore functional, organized systems to patients.
Sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology