Phd defense

Doctoral thesis defense

Tissue Engineering group member Sushma Bartaula-Brevik successfully defended her PhD thesis "Vascularization and Host Response in Bone Tissue Engineering" on 07.12.16.

Photo:

Jørgen Barth

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By Siddharth Vivek ShanbhagUpdated: 13.12.2016 (First published: 12.12.2016)

Summary:

The major hurdle in the survival of a tissue-engineered construct after implantation is vascularization. Pre-vascularization is one of the proposed methods to achieve vascularization in tissue-engineered constructs. This thesis is centered on prevascularization of the tissue-engineered construct and local host response upon implantation in vivo.

In her thesis, Sushma has shown that mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in combination with endothelial cells (EC) developed microvessels-like structures before implantation in vivo. Hypoxia, a common consequence after implantation of constructs, accelerated wound healing and tube formation via paracrine effect of MSC. Combining these two effects might lead to inosculation and survival of a graft. Addition of EC improved the immunomodulatory property of MSC.

Acting as opponents were Professor Susanna Miettinen, University of Tampere, Finland, and Professor Xuebin Yang, University of Leeds, UK.

Congratulations!

Background:

Sushma Bartaula-Brevik was born in 1980 in Nepal. She graduated as a dentist at the People's Dental College and Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal (2006), and worked as a dentist and instructor until 2010. The PhD project has been carried out at the Department of Clinical Dentistry, with funding from the University of Bergen and the EU Seventh Framework Programme. Her supervisors have been Professor Kamal Mustafa, Professor Anne Isine Bolstad and Dr. Torbjorn Østvik Pedersen.