Natural biomaterial successful in surgical model

Posted on 15 February 2019

Dr Debora Morgante’s research could refine the way some congenital and acquired urinary tract defects are surgically treated in the future.

Current Jack Birch Unit Clinical Research Fellow Dr Debora Morgante is carrying out PhD research studies as a PhD student registered with the Hull York Medical School. Debora’s research interests are in biomaterials and regenerative medicine, where she aims to validate new surgical biomaterials and procedures leading to improved surgical therapies.

Debora has successfully produced a natural biomaterial by decellularisation of pig bladder material collected as abattoir waste. She has used the biomaterial successfully in a surgical model of bladder auto-augmentation to examine the regenerative pattern of tissue development in the implanted biomaterial. Very recently, a new grant has been awarded through Grow MedTech to enable the technology to be applied to human bladders to produce a human acellular biomaterial. The hope is to apply this new bladder-derived biomaterial for the reconstruction of urinary tracts in paediatric and adult patients with a variety of neuropathic and other conditions.

In February 2019 That's TV York visited the JBU to find out more: