Cancer treatment can save lives, but can also have damaging side effects. Surgeons typically remove not just tumors but also healthy tissue and bone around them. This can change how a person looks and functions, affecting their physical and mental health during recovery.
With support from the Dartmouth Innovations Accelerator for Cancer, research engineers at Dartmouth Cancer Center are looking to change that. The work, led by Katie Hixon, PhD, aims to improve the quality of life for patients by coming up with new methods to repair and replace tissue and bone damaged during cancer treatment.
Hixon and her team are designing and building tissue-engineered scaffolds that can deliver chemotherapies, help with tissue repair after radiation, or even modify the immune response.
Read more about Hixon’s team and how tissue engineering helps healthy bone grow back.