Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

The use of nano-scale materials, particularly of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) has evolved as an increasing field of research in life sciences. In the past two decades, various iron oxide based MNPs are being explored for applications in magnetic separation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), drug delivery, as tracking agents within the emerging field of cell therapy, for guided tissue engineering as well as for hyperthermia (HT) applications. Our research focus on the development of proprietary Fe-Cr-Nb-B MNPs for local delivery of HT aiming the treatment of solid malignancies, for magnetic enhanced cell delivery as well as for magnetic guided tissue engineering. Medium and long term interaction of MNPs with human mesenchymal and stem cells of various origins (bone marrow, adipose tissue) was investigated in regard with their proliferative, differentiation and immune modulatory potential.Cell viabilility, proliferative as well as mesenchymal lineage differentiation potential was unaffected by the presence of bare as well as chitosan coated MNPs of clinically relevant amount (1-2 mg/mL). Particle retention inside the cell was demonstrated up to 28 days with several particularities related to cell type. We are currently investigating MNP loaded cell behavior after exposure to magnetic field.