Overview

The Taichman Laboratory, named in memory of its first director, Gerald Taichman, is part of the Cardiac Surgery Research Program. The lab, under its current director, Rosalind S. Labow, studies cell-material interaction. Specifically, research projects examine materials used in the manufacture of cardiovascular devices such as pacemaker leads, heart valves, and angioplasty balloons.

Assessment of explanted scaffolds for cell viability and tissue in growth. The explanted scaffolds were incubated with CFDA SE, followed by fixation with methanol and staining with propidium iodide. Following imbedding in OCT, the scaffolds were sliced and viewed with a confocal microscope. The cytoplasm of live cells stained green (A), nuclei red (B), and overlay (C) showed no nuclei without green cytoplasm. Panel (D) shows the scaffold structure in phase contrast overlaid with the fluorescent images. (E) and (G) showed the explanted scaffold stained with May Grunwald Giemsa. Blue/pink staining reveals cell cytoplasm while the nuclei are varying shades of purple. (F) and (H) show the scaffold stained with May Grunwald Giemsa that had not been implanted. Panels (I) and (L) show the Trichrome stain. Panels (J) and (L) show the scaffold that had not been implanted. Nuclei stain black, muscle fibres red, and collagen blue. (scale bar = 100 µm)