Graduate Student
Biomedical Engineering

MD, St. John's Medical College, 1996

Cook Hall 3070
2220 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-3108

(847) 461-5950 office
(847) 467-6416 lab
(847) 491-3010 facsimile

Email Kanya

Kanya Rajangam

Vascularised Scaffolds and Growth Factor Delivery Devices

My research investigates the use of peptide-amphiphile gels as both scaffolds and growth factor delivery vehicles. I am specifically working on using the scaffolds for in-vitro angiogenesis wherein encapsulated endothelial cells are stimulated to order themselves into tubular capillary like structures. Such a “vascularised” scaffold is of immense use in areas as varied as wound healing and in-vitro tissue engineering of bio-artificial organs. Preliminary cell work with encapsulating endothelial cells along with growth factors in these hydrogels shows promising results.

As for its second application, I am investigating delivery patterns of various angiogenic growth factors, which have been encapsulated within the gels. Achieving a steady release of these growth factors is beneficial in stimulating healing of chronic wounds with poor intrinsic vasculature as in diabetes mellitus. Research to demonstrate the pattern of heparin and growth factor release is ongoing.

Common to both these applications is design of novel peptide-amphiphiles, whose head groups putatively bind to heparin. Heparin, a naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan is essential to angiogenesis. It not only acts as a receptor of angiogenic growth factors, but also increases their biological activity by causing alteration in the structure as for eg. dimerization of basic fibroblast growth factor or bFGF. Work done so far shows that when these peptide-amphiphiles are mixed with heparin they form a self-supporting hydrogel composed of bundles of nanofibers (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: AFM image of heparin gelled peptide-amphiphile showing bundles of nanofibers (AFM by R. Bras).

I am also collaborating with group member Rafael Bras on the use of tissue transglutaminase as a biologically acceptable way of covalently cross-linking the peptide-amphiphile nanofibers so as to increase their strength.