In a Heartbeat

Engineered heart tissue holds promise as a key enabler to repair damaged human hearts. In his doctoral dissertation work our colleague Ruifeng Hu has discovered that we can improve the performance of these tissues by subjecting them to combined and synchronized electrical and mechanical stimulation that mimics the in vivo environment. That could make the tissues more effective when transplanted int the heart.

Ruifeng developed a device for synchronized electromechanical stimulation and demonstrated the effectiveness of synchronization after six hours of conditioning, which increased tissue contraction force by 40%. A major unanswered question is: Would more conditioning increase that force further? The proposed project will involve answering that question. Why didn’t Ruifeng already do this? It is challenging to maintain the tissues warm and happy for long periods of time in the incubator. We propose that by add ingredients an imaging system, and an extended reservoir of nutrients and performing the conditioning in an incubator, we could answer this important question.