Studio Guest – Andreas Lendlein a Pioneer in Regenerative Therapy
Prof. Dr. Andreas Lendlein directs the Institute of Polymer Research at the GKSS research centre in Teltow. We talk to him about new materials in medicine.
DW-TV: Joining us in the studio is Dr. Andreas Lendlein, an expert on regenerative therapies. Now what we've seen with the heart valves really promises a great future. Will it be possible one day to substitute all parts of the body, which are worn out or weak?
Andreas Lendlein: This was a good example to demonstrate the vision that we have in regenerative medicine, however today there are only a few applications already realised and on top of this, that are commercialised. For example, applications in the area of skin tissue engineering and the regeneration of small cartilage defects.
DW-TV: But it sounds a little bit like a fountain of youth. Will we be able to stop ageing?
Andreas Lendlein: Perhaps not necessarily stop ageing. But today we have such an increase in the life expectancy that we see more age related degenerative diseases, and our first aim of course is to work on strategies for these diseases.
DW-TV: But if you read all the goals of regenerative therapy; I mean medicine has reached what it wants. You are there.
Andreas Lendlein: The tremendous difference is that we do not need a pharmacological treatments, that is being applied on a regular basis. With just one application we have a full regeneration. This is beneficial for the patient, but it is also maybe of socio-economic interest.
DW-TV: It's very interesting that in regenerative therapies and also in tissue engineering, chemistry, in the form of plastic, actually meets biology and you brought us an example. Could you actually show is what you do with that.
Andreas Lendlein: We call this a shape memory material. Such materials are able to memorise a second shape and this second shape can be recalled just by heating those materials. I'm doing this here in a water bath. It's going from a polymer strike to a corkscrew like spiral.
DW-TV: That's quite amazing. What can you actually do with that?
Andreas Lendlein: It's also biodegradable. So applications area for instance are minimally invasive procedures where we only work with small incisions. The question which is to be asked in this context is how do we get a large spiky implant through a small incision in the body. We can programme the material, compress it, it goes into the body and then unfolds, just by heating up from room temperature to body temperature.
DW-TV: Could you maybe apply it for stents?
Andreas Lendlein: Yes that is an example. Stents are used for keeping a blood vessel open and in this way we can place them nice and minimally and they degrade when they have performed their mechanical and physical stability which was needed. When the blood vessel is regenerated they just disappear.
DW-TV: A spiral is already a pretty nice shape. But can you do even more complicated things?
Andreas Lendlein: We made intelligent sutures. Sutures that knot themselves and apply a predefined stress to a wound to enable an optimal wound healing. If it is applied too loosely then we get scar tissue formation, if it is too tight we do not get a nicely healed wound. The intelligent suture is really a nice thing for surgeons.
DW-TV: Magic, I'd say.
Andreas Lendlein: No, not magic, these are multi-functional materials.
(Interview: Ingolf Baur)
