Heart valve disease is a growing cause of cardiovascular mortality that impacts both children and adults. Heart valves are a critical structure that controls unidirectional flow of blood, that when damaged can lead to heart failure. The current treatment for heart valve disease is surgery to insert a prosthetic, however there are limits to the longevity of these prosthetics that can eventually cause them to fail. Our research is focused around utilizing pluripotent stem cells and precision bioengineering to create advanced heart valve tissue prosthetics to better treat patients with heart valve disease.
Impact
This research addresses a critical need to improve treatment for patients with heart valve disease. Our research aims to have a direct impact on patients by improving the quality of heart valve prosthetics that better matches the tissue in the body. In turn this will lead to less prosthetic failure and could reduce the need for recurrent valve replacement surgeries.
reNEW research
We are several years into the development of a valve prosethetic that closely matches the tissue in our bodies. We know that these stem cell-derived valve tissues have a similar makeup to native valve tissues. We are currently working on improving the strength of the valve tissue so that it is ready for use in the clinic.
Image description
The picture is a close up image of a bioengineered heart valve tissue that we’ve created from stem cells. Notice the organisation and alignment of the cells within the tissue – this is very important for how the valve will open and close with blood flow.
Credits
Jessica Durrant-Whyte, Holly Voges, Heart Regeneration.
