Researchers from the Institute of Materials Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, TUL, led by dr inż. Dorota Bociąga, are working on solving the problem of treating defects of the urethra.
Urinary tract birth defects in boys involve abnormal opening of the urethra. They occur in one of every 200-250 newborns. In adult men, a congenital or an acquired abnormality involves a stricture of the urethra. The problem emerges after the age of 55. We can help such patients by developing biomaterials to make urethras to treat hypospadias in children and stents to treat strictures with direct and indirect bioprinting, dr inż. Dorota Bociąga explains.
The project will be carried out in a consortium established especially for this purpose with Janusz Korczak Hospital in Łódź, Zbigniew Religa Foundation for Cardiac Surgery Development in Zabrze, Warsaw University of Technology, Copernicus University in Toruń, and Wolf 3D Solutions company.
The research is funded with the 8-million zloty research grant "Nowe funkcjonalne materiały do druku 3D w zakresie potrzeb UROlogicznych" (New functional 3D printing materials for UROlogy) (acronim: MATURO 3D awarded to the consortium by the National Center for Research and Development under the TECHMATSTRATEG scheme.