creator Rodriguez Arias, Jessica A. 2023 Spring 2023 Thesis Illinois Institute of Technology BME / Biomedical Engineering advisor Papavasiliou, Georgia Biomedical engineering cardiac tissue cell-laden Hydrogel Poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG) regeneration spheroid vascularization en Myocardial Infarction (MI) is the partial or complete blockage of blood flow to the myocardial tissue resulting in damage and therefore loss of heart function. In the U.S. every 40 seconds, someone will suffer from MI and the only available treatment is medication to treat the symptoms of heart function loss, but do not treat the underlying cause. Some attempts to treat the underlying cause have arisen in the last decades including cell-based therapies or tissue engineering therapies such as spheroid-based cardiac patches that have shown to be promising. Improvement in the mechanical properties to create suturable engineered tissues remain to be improved for ease of implantation purposes. Cell-laden hydrogel scaffolds can provide improved mechanical properties compared to biomaterial free cell-based therapies but need to allow for vascularization of the engineered tissue. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to provide preliminary studies for the use of a cell adhesive, proteolytically degradable PEG hydrogel scaffold that eventually would be used as an invitro model to evaluate engineered tissue vascularization for cardiac tissue engineering. To construct this model, important cell spheroid parameters on vascular invasion in 3D culture were investigated including the total number of cells/spheroid, the supporting cell for endothelial cells. In order to scale-up scaffolds to size of clinically relevant dimensions, a multilayered hydrogel construct visible light free-radical polymerization approach encapsulating vascular spheroids in multiple layers was also investigated. Results indicate that a total cell number of 5000 cells/spheroid aggregate were feasible due to cell sourcing. In addition, co-cultures of endothelial and mesenchymal stem cells led to maximized vascular invasion of the spheroids compared to fibroblast/endothelial co-culture and endothelial monoculture of spheroids in the hydrogel. Finally, the extent of vascularization of spheroids in each layer of the multilayered hydrogel constructs varied due to the observed differences in mechanical properties and swelling ratio of each layer due to incomplete polymerization of layers. This study demonstrated the importance of support cells and hydrogel mechanical properties in promoting vascularization of spheroid which serves as basis for building cell-laden hydrogel scaffolds for vascularization for cardiac tissues. born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access http://hdl.handle.net/10560/islandora:1025259