Pingsheng Huang, PhD | Institute of Biomedical Engineering; Yunpeng Bai, PhD; Chuangnian Zhang, PhD
Competition Sponsor: Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
Awardee Year: 2024
Hemodialysis is an important way to maintain life in patients with end-stage renal disease, which relies on long-term reliable vascular access. At present, artificial blood vessels have become an important “lifeline” for hemodialysis patients. However, the blood clotting inflammatory cascade on the inner wall of the artificial blood vessel leads to thrombus and blockage, the immune rejection reaction on the tube body aggravates inflammation and infection, and the mismatch of mechanical properties leads to anastomotic hyperplasia and stenosis. In particular, repeated puncture can easily lead to artificial blood vessel damage and puncture needle bleeding, causing thrombosis, hematoma and false aneurysm, etc., which puts forward higher requirements for the self-healing performance of artificial blood vessels. Therefore, long-term patency and stability of arteriovenous fistula of artificial vessels are urgently needed to meet the difficulties of hemodialysis treatment. Based on the relationship between the molecular design of artificial vascular materials, structural design and functions of blood vessel, we propose the design concept for engineering artificial blood vessels inspired by the three layers structure of natural blood vessels, using self-healing polyurethane elastomer and zwitterionic hydrogel as the basic materials. It is expected that the bio-mimic self-healing artificial blood vessels could demonstrate similar structure and performance with natural blood vessel, through the reasonable distribution and coordination of the function of artificial blood vessel materials.