Christopher Chen and his team at Boston University and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have invented a new approach to solve this complex problem called ESCAPE (engineered sacrificial capillary pumps for evacuation). In new research published in Nature, the multidisciplinary team demonstrates how they used gallium, a soft silvery metal that melts just above room temperature, as a molding material for generating cell structures in a wide range of shapes and sizes that can be used to engineer tissue.

The work is a secondary analysis of the phase 3 Randomized Trial to Prevent Vascular Events in HIV (REPRIEVE), which demonstrated that the cholesterol-lowering medication pitavastatin reduced the risk of adverse cardiovascular events by 36% over a median follow-up of 5.6 years in people with HIV.  The effect was greater than what would be expected from cholesterol lowering alone.