Advisor: Elliot L. Chaikof, M.D. Ph.D. (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School)

Committee:
Mark G. Allen, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Rudolph L. Gleason, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Robert M. Nerem, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Steve L. Stice, Ph.D. (University of Georgia)

For small diameter (<6mm) blood vessel replacements, lack of collaterals and vascular disease preclude homografts; while synthetic analogues, ePTFE, expanded polytetrafluroethylene, and PET, polyethyleneterephathalate, are prone to acute thrombosis and restenosis. It is postulated that the hierarchical assembly of cell populated matrices fabricated from protein analogues provides a new design strategy for generating a structurally viable tissue engineered vascular graft. To this end, synthetic elastin and collagen fiber analogs offer a novel strategy for creating tissue engineered vascular grafts with mechanical and biological properties that match or exceed those of native vessels. The objective of this work is to develop techniques for the fabrication of prosthetic vascular grafts from a series of extracellular matrix analogs composed of nanofibrous collagen matrices and elastin-mimetic proteins, with and without cells, and subsequently evaluate their biocompatibility and mechanical properties. The first aim relates to the fabrication and mechanical analysis of vascular grafts made from aforementioned protein analogs. The second aim relates to the seeding and proliferation of rodent mesenchymal stem cells on protein-based composites to recapitulate the media of native vasculature. The third aim relates to assessing the in vivo biocompatibility and stability of tissue engineered vascular grafts.