Science Daily, Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology – March 20, 2017
Medical devices implanted in the body for drug delivery, sensing, or tissue regeneration usually come under fire from the host’s immune system. Defense cells work to isolate material they consider foreign to the body, building up a wall of dense scar tissue around the devices, which eventually become unable to perform their functions.
Researchers at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital have identified a signaling molecule that is key to this process of “fibrosis,” and they have shown that blocking the molecule prevents the scar tissue from forming. The findings, reported in the March 20 issue of Nature Materials, could help scientists extend the lifespan of many types of implantable medical devices.
“This gives us a better understanding of the biology behind fibrosis and potentially a way to modulate that response to prevent the formation of scar tissue around implants,” says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), an affiliate at Boston Children’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study.
The paper’s lead author is Koch Institute and JDRF postdoc Joshua Doloff.
Preventing fibrosis
Anderson’s lab has been working for several years on an implantable device that could mimic the function of the pancreas, potentially offering a long-term treatment for diabetes patients. The device encapsulates insulin-producing islet cells within a material called alginate, a polysaccharide naturally found in algae. Alginate provokes a lesser immune response than human-made materials such as metal, but it still induces fibrosis.
