A healthy circulatory system is essential for overall well-being, yet genetic and environmental factors can lead to vascular damage or blockages, resulting in life-threatening conditions. These complications often impair major organs, like the heart and limbs, due to insufficient delivery of oxygen. To repair damaged vessels, surgeons often replace arteries with donor vessels or synthetic alternatives made from materials such as Dacron and Gore-Tex. However, these existing options often fail in the long term due to inadequate mechanical and physiological properties that are vastly different from normal arteries.
This project focuses on developing a degradable vascular graft designed to regrow vessels, ultimately restoring optimal blood flow and reducing life-threatening complications. In essence, we aim to create a graft which can be implemented, stimulating vessel regrowth such that the final product is nearly indistinguishable from normal arteries. This is achieved through a unique combination of degradable polymers and the key component, tropoelastin (TE). These degradable polymers have demonstrated the ability to slowly breakdown within the body, providing initial structural support for the vessel and directing long-term mechanical properties once degraded and without being toxic. Along with these degradable polymers is TE, the building block which forms elastin. Elastin is needed to give vessels their versatile elasticity and vital physiological properties. Once implanted, a symphony ensues, with various cell types reorganising the introduced structure into a functional new vessel, utilising the tropoelastin for rapid regeneration.
To assess the success of our graft, we will be undertaking these studies in animal models, allowing for refinement of our vascular graft as we move toward clinical implementation. After 8 months in the animal model, we will determine vessel structure through high-powered microscopy. Subsequently, we will investigate any potential cell interactions as well as exploring any crucial changes in the graft. Once analysed, the data will be widely available, broadening common knowledge of this work and encouraging collaborations.
The data gained from this project will be invaluable, enabling us to have key insights into uses for this novel graft, not only in refining the design, but to also work towards implementing it in a surgical setting. If successful, these grafts could revolutionise vascular surgery by providing a highly accessible ‘off the shelf’ solution that promotes natural vessel regrowth, mimicking the function of a healthy vessel. Millions will benefit from this work, helping people to reclaim the opportunity for a long and healthy life.
Last updated28 May 2026