![]() Although it may seem like a bizarre undertaking, with additional work Holmes’ carbacious cell nursery has the potential to help researchers repair damaged tissue or regenerate organs. In a study published in November in Biomaterials, Holmes and her labmates show that this fast, simple recipe containing little more than pantry ingredients can foster precursor cells for mouse muscle, connective tissue and bone in a dish for up to four weeks. Holmes and her Pelling lab colleagues sterilized the crumbs, soaked them in nutrients, and allowed young cells to adhere to the crumbs and infiltrate the pores. In doing so, she made a surprising discovery: The porous structure of Irish soda bread provided an excellent scaffold. Like many during the spring lockdown, she began experimenting with bread recipes. She abandoned her pasta project after exhausting the list of potentially-porous noodles (from Ramen to pea-based pastas) that might make for good scaffolds. Instead, Holmes’ kitchen became her laboratory. They’ve identified everyday foods containing naturally-occurring scaffolds that, with a little tweaking, could provide the physical foundation for mammalian cells to divide, come together, communicate and assume specialized roles.Īs the Covid-19 pandemic escalated during Holmes’ junior year, the university temporarily closed its research facilities to undergraduates. The Pelling lab’s approach, though, is rather unconventional. The flat petri dishes that scientists have been using since the 1800s do not mimic the body’s complex environment, so the Pelling lab and others have been hard at work developing more realistic 3D “scaffolds” to support cell growth. There, researchers like Holmes are probing common grocery items to determine which contain microscopic structures that could shape nascent cells into functional tissues. In the name of regenerative medicine, Pelling runs his lab like an experimental kitchen. When chemistry major Jessica Holmes joined biophysicist Andrew Pelling’s Lab for Augmented Biology at the University of Ottawa, she was charged with an unusual task: coax mammalian cells to multiply and thrive on pasta noodles.
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