The Urology Center at CHOC is collaborating with Joshua Mauney, PhD, associate professor of urology/biomedical engineering and Jerry D. Choate Presidential Chair in Urology Tissue Engineering in the University of California, Irvine Urology Department, who focuses his research on tissue engineering with the development of silk biomaterials for the repair of visceral hollow organs. Dr. Mauney has a productive basic science laboratory with NIH grant funding and was previously a staff scientist in the Department of Urology at Boston Children’s Hospital and associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.
“The overall goal is the creation of clinically useful scaffold configurations for hollow organ regeneration by engineering materials which fulfill structural and mechanical requirements of native tissues as well as present microenvironmental cues necessary for host tissue integration and defect consolidation,” said Dr. Mauney.
3D matrix designs using silk biomaterials can be used to restore function related to injury or fibrotic disease. Silk scaffolds offer advantages over non-biomaterial implants for human bladder augmentation and can support bladder storage, voiding function and defect correction.
“The addition of Dr. Mauney allows the CHOC team to focus on the reconstruction of bladders and organs using his 3D matrix designs to offer options for children born with missing or abnormal parts of their urinary tract,” said Dr. Antoine “Tony” Khoury, chief of pediatric urology.
CHOC Children’s Hospital was named one of the nation’s best children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report in its 2024-25 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings and ranked in the urology specialty.
