Bioengineered vocal fold mucosa for functional voice restoration
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsNathan Welham, Changying Ling
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Abstract
An engineered vocal fold mucosa, including an engineered lamina propria layer and an engineered squamous epithelium layer, is disclosed. The engineered lamina propria is made by seeding and culturing human vocal fold fibroblasts within a polymerized collagen scaffold, and the engineered squamous epithelium is made by culturing human vocal fold epithelial cells on the scaffold surface. The resulting engineered vocal fold mucosa is not immunogenic, and is capable of exhibiting the vibratory function and acoustic output of a native vocal fold mucosa. Accordingly, the engineered vocal fold mucosa may be implanted into the larynx to treat voice impairment.
Claims15
A method of making an engineered vocal fold mucosa, comprising:
- (a) culturing a plurality of human vocal fold fibroblasts (VFFs) within a scaffold comprising polymerized collagen to form an engineered non-vascularized lamina propria;
- and
- (b) culturing a plurality of human vocal fold epithelial cells (VFEs) on a surface of the scaffold to form an engineered stratified squamous epithelium that is in contact with the engineered non-vascularized lamina propria;
- thereby forming an engineered vocal fold mucosa, wherein the plurality of human VFFs and the plurality of human VFEs are primary cells from a single human donor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.