Description

Please join us for our next webinar with Hasan Erbil Abaci, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Dermatology and Department of Biomedical Engineering (Affiliate Faculty) at Columbia University Medical Center who will present his work in a talk entitled:  Integrating Tissue-Specific Vasculature in Advanced 3D Skin Models.

 Abstract: Emerging evidence highlights the molecular and functional heterogeneity of endothelial cells (ECs) across different organs. Human skin vasculature exhibits distinct anatomy compared to other organs, featuring specialized capillary loops near skin appendages (e.g., hair follicles) and diverse functions, such as regulating constitutive lymphocyte trafficking at homeostasis, unlike non-lymphoid organs. However, our understanding of skin-specific vascular phenotypes and functions in both health and disease remains limited.

Engineered 3D skin constructs provide physiologically relevant models to study skin-specific microvasculature using human cells in the context of its native microenvironment. Yet, conventional 3D skin constructs, typically composed only of dermal fibroblasts (FBs) and keratinocytes (KCs), fail to capture the cellular diversity and complexity of the skin vascular niche.

To address this challenge, our group employs advanced engineering techniques, such as 3D-printing and microfluidics, to integrate vasculature into engineered skin tissues and their subcomponents, such as hair follicles. In this seminar, I will present our efforts in:

(i) Recreating the cellular and biomechanical microenvironment of skin-specific microvasculature with unprecedented complexity;

(ii) Utilizing 3D-(bio)printing to integrate vasculature, hair follicles, and immune cells into 3D skin constructs; and

(iii) Vascularizing 3D skin grafts to enhance the survival and structural integrity of skin transplants in mice. Overall, our work underscores the importance of incorporating tissue-specific vasculature into engineered models, offering transformative insights into the inter-organ heterogeneities of human microvasculature.