The work on developing blood vessels of cellulose is the result of a fruitful collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology and the Sahlgrenska Academy, the faculty of health sciences at University of Gothenburg.

Researcher Aase Bodin and her colleagues have managed to “tame" a strain of bacteria that can be used in the laboratory to produce cellulose blood vessels as thin as1 mmin diameter.
 
True interdisciplinary science
The function of the blood vessels was verified at the Department of Vascular Surgery at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. At the same time three students at GIBBS, Göteborg International Bioscience Business School, started the company Arterion to launch the unique product on the international market.

“The most exciting thing about this project is that the work is interdisciplinary in the true sense of the word," says Aase Bodin, when we visit the laboratory at Chalmers Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Just now the development and production of blood vessels is intense here, in preparation for the animal studies to come.

“I have researched bacterial cultures and cellulose for about five years. And it is fantastic now to have a field of application that is not only scientifically interesting — it may also save lives."  

It was pure chance that the bacterium also came to be of interest to cardiovascular surgery. Every year more than three million bypass operations are performed in the world. In about one fifth of the cases problems arise, because the blood vessels for transplant are inadequate.

“Consequently there is a great need for artificial vessels. If we had them, patients who lack suitable vessels of their own could undergo bypass surgery," says Karl Richard Nilsson, Managing Director of Arterion.
 
 

“The material has to be strong and resilient, and at the same time very stable. Furthermore it should be highly permeable, and it has to be compatible with the human body."

Little wonder then that Aase Bodin´s bacterium has sparked such interest, since it has the precise ability to create a very strong, resilient and stable material.

“It is also a fairly simple process to produce the material, because in principle the bacteria need only sugar and air to do their job," says Aase Bodin.

For Aase and her colleagues at the lab and at Arterion, the big challenge has been to create a material with the precise qualities needed.
 
On the market in five years
A very explicit demand, for example, is to create a blood vessel with a diameter of less than 5 mm . The greatest need is for vessels of that size.

“With that in mind we refined our process and developed the strain of bacteria, and today we have a patent-pending process that can be used to create vessels as thin as 1 mm ."

“The principle is incredibly simple, but finding a standardized and quality-guaranteed process is much more difficult," says Karl Richard Nilsson.

Successful short-term studies on rats and pigs have already been completed, and soon it will be time for the first, large, long-term study on animals.

“We have ethical approval for a two-year study, where the aim is to replace part of the carotid artery in sheep. The next step, if everything goes well, is to begin studies on humans.

Aase Bodin, Karl Richard Nilsson and colleagues at Arterion estimate that in four or five years the artificial blood vessels of cellulose will be out on the market.

Text: Sven-E Lindberg