CPAP

CPAP therapy is effective in reducing sleep apnoea and less expensive than other treatments, however, some people find it extremely uncomfortable. Patients complain of feeling trapped, having chest discomfort, and skin or nose irritation, all caused by the mask. Much of the sales literature from companies that make CPAP systems focuses on the comfort of their masks. One way of helping patient comfort and compliance is to ensure that the mask fits the nose and face well and does not cause any discomfort. The material of manufacture of the mask is also important with hardness/softness, flexibility, durability, and hypo-allergenicity all considerations. Custom making the mask to fit the patient should ensure an improved level of comfort over the more generic masks which currently exist. The aim of this project is to 3D print the customised mask inserts in silicone that fit specifically to individual patients faces and within commercial companies’ generic masks.

3D Printing of Facial/Body Prostheses

Facial prostheses are required by patients who have lost eyes, ears, noses or combinations of these from trauma (road traffic accident), surgery (cancerous tumour) and congenital malformations. The current process of manufacturing prostheses involves taking an impression of defect site, pouring a working model in stone, carving/sculpturing a wax trial prosthesis, creation of a 2/3 part mould into which pigmented silicone is placed prior to curing. Finally, it is sometimes necessary to add further pigmentation when the prosthesis is fitted onto the patient. This process involves 5 to 7 patient appointments varying between 1 -1.5 hours. Adaptation of digital technology into the process could reduce the number of appointments to 2 and would be free from variability caused by individual artistic and colour interpretation skills required by the clinician. The aim of this projects is to directly 3D print facial prostheses with the desired material characteristics of skin and to match the patients surrounding natural tissue.

• Innovations in prosthetic technologies - Spotlight

Perfusable, stem cells-derived blood vessels in custom lab-on-chip devices

Induced Pluripotent Stem cells (iPSC) technology holds the promise to grow specific tissues which can be used to meet the >1M annual demand for tissue and organ transplants. One bottleneck in realising this potential is achieving vascularisation of SC-derived micro-tissues, to grow functional tissues of sufficient size. To address this need we are creating lab-on-chip platforms to culture stem cells-derived Endothelial (EC) and vascular mural cells (Pericytes, Pc and Smooth Muscle Cells, SMC) under controlled perfusion conditions. With these tools we are investigating the basic mechanisms driving blood vessels assembly and maturation under defined chemical and physical conditions. This research will increase our understanding of vasculogenesis, angiogenesis and vessels maturation and deliver novel platforms to grow vascularised micro-tissues in vitro. For more information regarding this project contact Dr Lorenzo Veschini (lorenzo.1.veschini@kcl.ac.uk)

Developing advanced image analysis techniques for the phenotyping of stem cells-derived endothelial cells

Stem cells cell technology promises to deliver a potentially unlimited amount of specialised somatic cells (e.g. hepatocytes, pancreatic beta-cells, cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells) for regenerative therapies. To fulfil this promise it is necessary to refine the techniques to derive specialised cells of interest from stem cells and to phenotype them accurately to validate their identity and functions. We are using high-throughput and high-content image analysis techniques to phenotype stem cells-derived endothelial cells under different experimental conditions. Endothelial cells are phenotypically heterogeneous among different organs and tissues and this is reflected into subtle morphological and phenotypical differences. High-content image analysis allows extracting rich information on cell phenotype allowing to evaluate cell functional status and to capture differences in cell phenotype such at sub cellular level. This research is producing valuable software tools to aid refinement of stem cells differentiation protocols toward specialised endothelia. For more information regarding this project contact Dr Lorenzo Veschini (lorenzo.1.veschini@kcl.ac.uk)

• In collaboration with D Danovi @the Stem Cells Hotel