 R. Marini

R. Marini is a coauthor of the 1999 report Functional arteries grown in vitro, a primary study of engineered vascular tissue. The paper combined cultured-vessel measurements with implantation in an animal model.^[ref]

This work connects two distinct questions in tissue engineering: whether a construct tolerates mechanical loading and whether it functions in a biological setting. Pressure resistance, attachment at a surgical connection and the maintenance of an open flow path are different observations. Success in one test does not logically establish the others.

An illustrative biomechanics calculation makes the distinction concrete. For a thin cylindrical vessel wall, a force balance gives circumferential stress ${\sigma }_{\theta }\approx pr/h$, with internal pressure $p$, radius $r$ and wall thickness $h$. Chosen values $p=100\mathrm{kPa}$, $r=1\mathrm{mm}$ and $h=0.1\mathrm{mm}$ give ${\sigma }_{\theta }\approx 1\mathrm{MPa}$. This is a model calculation, not a reported result or an operating recommendation. Geometry and pressure must be specified before comparing a vessel’s material response.