Investigating stem cells 3D bio printing and potential application in cardiovascular regenerative medicine

Prosthetic replacement grafts are used in Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) corrective surgery. However, these grafts have limited durability and often require repeated operations because of lack of growth potential. Stem cells engineered cardiovascular grafts that grow, repair and remodel have the potential to provide longer lasting therapeutic effect and eradicating the need for additional surgeries. Many tissue-engineering approaches are currently developed. Extrusion-based 3D bio printing has the potential to yield larger and more stable structures at higher concentrations of material in a continuous fashion, and is thus an optimal choice of technology for constructing clinically viable cardiovascular constructs.
This project is aiming at using 3D bio printing of stem cells to produce constructs with growth potential suitable for cardiovascular reparative and regenerative medicine. It assesses the most suitable biomaterial or combinations of biomaterials, which will allow for the printing of robust, clinically relevant cardiovascular patches to be utilized in reconstructive heart surgery. The resulting constructs will be tested biochemically and biomechanically in vitro. Then the most promising constructs will be tested in vivo. Their durability, growth potential and suitability for corrective heart surgery will be assessed using biomechanical testing, echocardiography and immunocytochemistry.