Heart Valve Tissue Engineering
Combining electrowriting with computational modelling and design of experiments, a novel method was developed to engineer soft connective tissues like heart valves with biomimetic mechanical properties. The above images show fibrous scaffolds with various architectures, each exhibiting a specific nonlinear, anisotropic stress-strain behaviour.
Polymeric Scaffolds with Optimized Architecture
The architectural parameters of polymeric scaffolds composed of stacked layers of sinusoidal polycaprolactone fibres were optimized using computational modelling and a design of experiment approach to mimic the biaxial tensile mechanical behaviour of native heart valve tissue.
Hybrid Tissue Composed of Polymeric Scaffold and Fibrin Hydrogel
Fibrin hydrogel laden with human umbilical cord perivascular cells was cast within the polymeric scaffold to fill the pores and create a tissue sheet.
Fabrication of Trileaflet Valve
Hybrid tissue sheets were configured into trileaflet pediatric pulmonary valves using crown-shaped frames.
Hemodynamic Testing
Trileaflet pulmonary valves showed proper valvular function under the physiological hemodynamic condition. More information can be found here.
Publications in Heart Valve Tissue Engineering
1- Mirani B, Mathew SO, Latifi N, Labrosse MR, Amsden BG, Simmons CA. Programmable melt electrowriting to engineer soft connective tissues with prescribed, biomimetic biaxial mechanical properties. Advanced Functional Materials. 2024 | 34(1), pp 2302786, doi: 10.1002/adfm.202302786. Inside front cover illustration.
2- Mirani B*, Parvin Nejad S*, Simmons CA. Recent progress toward clinical translation of tissue-engineered heart valves. Canadian Journal of Cardiology. 2021 | 37(7), pp 1064-1077, doi: 10.1016/j.cjca.2021.03.022. *Equal contribution.
3- Parvin Nejad S, Lecce M, Mirani B, Siqueira NM, Mirzaei Z, Santerre JP, Davies JE, Simmons CA, Serum- and xeno-free culture of human umbilical cord perivascular cells for pediatric heart valve tissue engineering. Stem Cell Research & Therapy. 2023 | 14(96), pp 1-16, doi: 10.1186/s13287-023-03318-3.