Carleton University

Purpose

The body responds to injury in several ways. While the healing process begins by replacing damaged tissue with cells of the same type, this phase is typically followed by fibrosis, wherein normal tissues are replaced by connective tissue. The result is overgrowth, hardening, and/or scarring of various tissues, such as lungs, liver, heart, and brain, and is attributed to excessive deposition of collagen. Current histological methods for analyzing the changes happening within the extracellular matrix (ECM) cannot accurately resolve the biochemical and 3D structural composition of specific proteins and components. We will be responsible for assessing the models developed at the NRC using super-resolution optical microscopy techniques as well as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to assess 3D structural features of ECM molecules. We will be responsible for acquiring such images and develop new image analysis methods to assess how the fibers and fibrils morphology are altered, as well as establish metrics to capture the 3D structure of the bioprinted tissue fibers.