Apparatus and method for sterilizing, seeding, culturing, storing, shipping and testing tissue, synthetic or native vascular grafts

摘要

An apparatus and method for sterilizing, seeding, culturing, storing, shipping, and testing vascular grafts is disclosed. Specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for seeding and culturing vascular grafts with human cells. The apparatus includes a fluid reservoir (10), a pump (12), an alternating pressure source (16), and at least one treatment chamber (14). By alternating pressure to a support structure (32) within the treatment chamber (14) upon which a vascular graft scaffold (26) is positioned, a varying radial stress is placed on the scaffold (26). This stress results in a tissue-engineered vascular graft with cells and their fibers oriented in a manner which is more likely to possess long term dimensional stability and the patency of native vessels with normal physiologic function.