We are an inter-disciplinary group trying to explore responsive, and adaptive bio-compatible materials, particularly in order to treat cardio-vascular diseases.
‘Cardiovascular disease‘ is the leading cause of death worldwide, with this trend predicted to continue for the foreseeable future. Common disorders are associated with the stenosis, or occlusion of blood vessels. As-of-now, The preferred treatment for the long-term re-vascular- ization of occluded vessels is surgery utilizing vascular grafts, such as coronary artery bypass grafting, and peripheral artery grafting.
Right ventricle–to–pulmonary artery (RV-PA) conduits are frequently used as a surgical palliative treatment for a variety of congenital heart diseases in infants and children. Due to the growth of the infant or child, or complications like kinking or thrombosis of the device, these conduits require replacement which may involve several major open heart surgery before adulthood. We propose to utilize 3D printing to design and develop a novel RV-PA conduit that increases its size via tailored self-unfolding triggered by flow and time so that fewer complications as well as surgeries are required to maintain and develop normal pulmonary blood flow from infancy to adulthood.
We anticipate that self- unfolding mechanisms, and associated shape changes will result in operation of the conduits over longer periods of infant and child growth into adulthood. We believe that these studies will enable a new class of RV-PA conduits as well as serve as a model for designing patient-specific shape changing biomedical implants for infants that are capable of growing at the same rate to reduce the number of follow up operations.
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