Who say skill ca n’t be delicious ? Leon Bellan , an adjunct prof of mechanical technology at Vanderbilt University , is developing a way to make artificial blood vessels using a modified cotton candy machine .
Bellan began his research on a minute of a whim . As a alumnus student , he was root on to set forth working with cotton fiber confect machines during a lecture . “ The analogies everyone uses to draw electrospun fibers are that they look like silly string , or Cheese Whiz , or cotton wool confect , ” he explainedin apress vent . “ I went to Target and bought a cotton wool candy machine for about $ 40 . It turned out that it organise threads that were about one - ten percent the diam of a human hair — rough the same size as capillary — so they could be used to make channel structures in other materials . ”
agree toresearchpublished last week inAdvanced Healthcare Materials , Bellan and his squad originate a method acting of craft capillary that can be used to bring nutrients and atomic number 8 to artificial organs . The deception , he explained , was find the proper cloth to make his “ cotton fiber confect ” capillaries . Many researchers presently utilize urine - base colloidal gel called hydrogels to back the living cells within artificial Hammond organ . actual cotton candy is made of loot , which is piss soluble , think it dissolves when it fare into contact with hydrogel . Bellan managed to witness a polymer call PNIPAM which break up only at specific temperatures so that its dissolving can be controlled .
“ First , the fabric has to be insoluble in water when you make the mould so it does n’t dissolve when you decant the gelatin , " Bellansays . “ Then it must dissolve in water to create the microchannels , because cell will only grow in aqueous environments . ”
Learn more about the enquiry in the video below .
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