As a result of a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Philadelphia University has created a state-of-the art Biomedical Textile Structures Laboratory (BTSL).

A ribbon cutting ceremony will take place Friday, Oct. 16 at 12:30 p.m. in the new BTSL in Hayward Hall, Room 030. The University community is invited. President Spinelli; Dean Brookstein; Thomas Armstrong, program director for the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development; and Cheryl Bullock, senior adviser and southeastern Pennsylvania regional director for U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), will speak at the ceremony.

Researchers at the BTSL, working with medical researchers from the College of Medicine at Drexel University, will focus on the development, testing and support of basic research in biomedical textile devices using a variety of nanofiber platforms and applications.

“An exciting concentration will be in the area of nano-textile structures and their impact on advanced tissue engineering,” said Dr. David Brookstein, dean of the Philadelphia University School of Engineering and Textiles. “This area holds tremendous potential for the development of new technologies for Pennsylvania industries.”

With Commonwealth of Pennsylvania funding, Philadelphia University has acquired a specially made MAGEBA Jacquard Shuttle Loom (SSL MT 140), which arrived on campus today at 7 a.m., with four shuttle positions and two HERZOG braiders, one for producing flat triaxial braiders and one for producing circular braids.

The MAGEBA loom can produce complex 3-D woven structures including bifurcated ones. These unique textile manufacturing systems join the nanofiber spinning systems developed by Kato-Tech.

The BTSL also has a fully automated, state-of-the-art prototyping machine called a Vertical Machining Center (VMC) for producing complex tooling to support some of the research at the BTSL. The VMC was donated by MAG Industrial Automation Systems earlier this year.

The BTSL will focus on the development, testing and support of basic research in biomedical textile devices. Advances in biological, material sciences and nanotechnology are encouraging scientists to pursue even more collaborative projects. This is particularly the case for those focused on implantable textiles that have biological applications. Some report that there is a great potential for an immediate impact on the study of “biotextiles,” which are implantable medical textiles and focused on tissue engineering.

A relatively large family of the biomaterials and devices currently in development and testing are composed of textile fibers configured in a wide range of geometries such as woven flat fabrics and tubes, knitted flat fabrics and tubes and braided tubes, cords and fabrics. More specifically, some of the biological elements that lend themselves to the use of textile materials or are based on textile structures include:

1. sutures
2. mesh fabrics for hernia repair, abdominal repair, cardiac support, female pelvic repair
3. ligaments and tendons, i.e., anterior cruciate ligament
4. vascular implants for aortal, cardiac and peripheral applications
5. scaffolds for tissue engineered implants

Participants of the 2009 Discovery to Commercialization Conference, organized by the Nanotechnology Institute and the Energy Commercialization Institute, will learn about the next generation of advanced textile technology during a site visit to Philadelphia University on Friday, Oct. 16. 

Philadelphia University was a pioneer in the field of the development of medical textiles and developed the first bifurcated aortal graft in collaboration with cardiac experts.

Many national and international researchers have found that textile materials are an outstanding choice for biomedical applications. Textiles are flexible in terms of the ability to develop them for specific applications. They can be based on a broad variety of fibers and are amenable to a blending of technical components and biological or other cellular materials.

The addition of nano-textiles structures capabilities gives the Biological Textile Structures Laboratory an additional and quite exciting potential.