US National Institute of Health defined regenerative medicine as “the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects”. People aged over 65 are expected to make up more than 40% within 20 years increasing the demand for regenerative medicine. Nanotechnology is crucial for restoring functions and regeneration of diseased tissues/organs. The case studies selected for NanoReMedi contribute to new nanomaterials addressing specific problems:
1. Biodegradable composite vascular grafts to replace damaged peripheral arteries.This occlusive disease is one of the major cardiovascular disease (annual mortality: 23.3 million by 2030; involves 4-12% of adults, 55-70 years-old; burden of mortality: 10-15%). Treatment for patients unresponsive to medical therapy relies on costly surgical or endovascular revascularization by autologous vein by-pass surgery, requiring an invasive harvest, limited by low availability of autologous vessels. Synthetic vessels, matching the native tissue mechanical/structural properties, represents a more-compliant/cost-effective improved strategy. Advanced materials mimicking the mechanical/biologic properties of the vascular walls-forming tissues represent a viable solution, providing vascular surgeons with a source of “physiological” safe/durable conduits.
2. Stem-cell based regenerative medicine for bone and cartilage repair. Treatment of full-thickness cartilage defects, which cartilage/sub-chondral bone damaged, is a difficult challenge. Typical treatments involve repeated corticosteroids and visco-supplementation injections in joints, providing temporary pain relief and functionality improvement, cell therapies promoting cartilage regeneration, but with some limitations due to phenotype stability and large production issues. Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapies are an attractive alternative. Novel biomimetic hydrogels with finely tunable properties are attractive alternatives: osteochondral scaffolds stimulating the regeneration of the damaged tissues with long lasting therapeutic effects would be most cost-effective.
3. Facing with implantation failure. Bacterial infections affect over 250 million people worldwide per year. Recently, the World Health Organization published a list of 12 different bacterial strains resistant to many antibiotics. For implants, these strains may lead to the formation of a biofilm, providing the bacteria with superior survival properties, including resistance to antibiotics, inducing severe infection and implant failure. Effective counteraction is based on peptide nanostructures, working as both antimicrobials and electro-responsive carriers, preventing antibiotic resistance. The combination of antimicrobial peptides and peptide-based nanocarriers is expected to overcome the main drawbacks of the current therapeutic approach.
