Vasculature Connects to Islets in a Synthetic Matrix 1

Vasculature Connects to Islets in a Synthetic Matrix 1

Timothy Kassis & Alex Brown

MIT Department of Biological Engineering, Koch Institute at MIT

Diabetes is a common disease in which the glucose regulating cells in the pancreas, that form spheroids called islets, fail at their function. There is currently no reliable and predictive in vitro model of the pancreas to allow researchers to develop a cure for diabetes. These images show our attempt at creating a more accurate model by engineering a vascular network into these islets and to assess the level of anastomosis between our engineered vascular networks (shown in red) and the islets themselves (shown in blue, organ, green and yellow). Vascular networks are crucial for long-term survival of islets and their proper functioning in regulating glucose through controlled insulin and glucagon secretion.

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