3D biofabrication of an intestine from human pluripotent stem cells for transplantation - the project is underway

Intestinal transplants have become more common, especially to treat children presenting with debilitating intestinal disease. Whilst such cases have increased in recent years the number of donors is limited, prompting the search for new solutions, such as tissue engineering, to overcome this problem.

New methodologies for generating intestinal tissue for clinical use will be developed in this project carried out at Centrale Nantes by Luciano Vidal and Jean-Yves Hascoët, researchers in the Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (GeM). To this end, the researchers will deploy 3D biofabrication methods combined with the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to generate a human tubular intestine.

This project is financed as part of a call for projects by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (Foundation for Medical Research). It brings together various institutions: Inserm, the University of Nantes and Centrale Nantes and is led by Maxime Mahé, a researcher at the TENS laboratory in Nantes, who has extensive experience in intestinal development using innovative approaches.