The severity of a heart attack is determined by the area of heart muscle affected by the occluded vessel, but also by a \u2018border zone\u2019 (BZ) that separates the infarct region from the unaffected heart muscle. The BZ has been implicated in adverse remodeling that occurs after a heart attack, but because the region is difficult to isolate and study using animal models, how BZ biology contributes to disease progression remains largely unknown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To study BZ biology, the Chen lab is engineering a cardiac microtissue model that recapitulates BZ biology and biomechanics. Together with Claudia Varela, a postdoctoral researcher in the Chen lab, the REU student will help with the design and manufacturing of prototypes of the culture system and conduct experiments to assess BZ induction into the cardiac microtissues. This model will enable studies that elucidate how the region evolves and provide key design criteria for interventions that need to interface with that region, such as the cardiac patches being engineered in CELL-MET.<\/span><\/p>\n\n