Dr. Nicholas P. Rhodes

The BBC article Human blood vessels grown in mice said

Scientists have used human cells to grow new blood vessels in a mouse for the first time. It could eventually help patients who had suffered heart attacks, they said.
 
A mixture of “progenitor” cells, taken from blood and bone marrow, made cells lining the vessels, and also those surrounding the lining.
 
Dr Nick Rhodes, from the UK Centre for Tissue Engineering at the University of Liverpool, said that the results were “interesting and promising”.
 
He said: “It could certainly assist in the connection of other engineered organs to the body’s blood supply.

Nicholas P. Rhodes, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. is Reader in Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine, University of Liverpool.
 
Nick’s active research projects include:
 
STEPS: A Systems Approach to Tissue Engineering Processes and Products. This program is an integrated project under the FP6 aiming to successfully implement TE, systematically linking together all aspects of this multi-disciplinary process by applying the logistics of systems engineering, providing a totally new infrastructure.
 
Specifically, the technological components will include cell sourcing and manipulation, novel biomaterial development, bioreactor design, and the integration of TE constructs into the living host.
 
REMEDI: Regenerative medicine — a new industry. This program’s main aim is to demonstrate how established bio-science can be transformed into profitable commercial practice and generate affordable therapies while developing the science of manufacture. The main tasks include:

• Determining the value of tissue engineered products to users in healthcare, thus defining the market place and showing how the development of regulation and industrial policy can maximize economic benefit while protecting patients.
• Creating and demonstrating reproducible cost effective processes for the scaleable production of cells, scaffolds, and tissue products that satisfy the regulator and take advantage of emerging sensing and control techniques.
• Constructing a community that integrates the Challenge program and generates a shared vision for the industry and its future products and explores these visions practically. He is developing techniques to enable life science and manufacturing professionals in SMEs to create cost effective manufacturing systems, pre-clinically, while managing biological risk.

Nick authored Inflammatory signals in the development of tissue-engineered soft tissue and coauthored Analysis of the cellular infiltration of benzyl-esterified hyaluronan sponges implanted in rats, Induction of adipose tissue regeneration by chemically-modified hyaluronic acid, The effect of gas plasma modification on platelet and contact phase activation processes, Autologous in vivo tissue engineering in hyaluronan-based gels — a pilot study, Control of the domain microstructures of PLGA and PCL binary systems: Importance of morphology in controlled drug release, and Effect of titanium carbide coating on the osseointegration response in vitro and in vivo.
 
Listen to Nick on Regenerative Medicine Today.