Tissue engineering

Scientists have, for the first time, developed functional, brain-like tissue without relying on animal-derived materials or biological coatings. The innovation offers a new, fully synthetic platform for neural tissue engineering.

Researchers have created a synthetic “cellular glue” that bonds cells together to different degrees. The technique could speed up wound healing, even in tissues that don’t heal well naturally, and eventually allow scientists to build better organs.

While thin sheets of lab-grown biological tissue do show promise for applications such as the treatment of wounds, picking those delicate sheets up can be very difficult. That's where a new octopus-inspired gripper is designed to come in.

Despite outward appearances, plants and animals share surprising similarities in their vascular network structures. So what if there was a way to take advantage of these similarities to grow human cardiac tissue using leaves? The WPU researchers have done just that.