Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ES/iPS cells
Cardiac cells
Establishment of
pacing system
Fabrication of
“Bioengineered Heart”
Te mperature responsive
culture dish
Circulatory
support
Cell sheet
layering
Pulsatile
myocardial tube
Remarkable many and
many breakthroughs in
tissue engineering and cell
biology, etc.
Fabrication functional
organ-like tissue
3D myocardial tissue
Reconstruction
Ve in
Artery
Fabrication of
tissue with
vein/artery
Va scularization
Figure 7.1
Future planning of myocardial tissue engineering and
regenerative medicine.
Our laboratory has demonstrated the in vivo and in vitro fabrica-
tion of pulsatile myocardial tubes using a novel cell sheet-wrapping
device [60, 61]. Although the inner pressures of fabricated myocar-
dial tubes are unable to become sufficient compared to host blood
pressure (the pressure of in vivo tube: 5.9 ± 1.7 mmHg; in vitro tube:
0.11 ± 0.01 mmHg), the technique shows an interesting possibility.
The application of mechanical loads to myocardial tubes and the re-
construction of thicker myocardial tissue should induce the creation
of more powerful myocardial tubes that can generate independent
pressures that are sufficient for the circulatory support of damaged
hearts. As the next stage, our laboratory is now attempting to apply
the use of newer and more advanced pacing devices to synchronize
graft beatings with the host heart for examining the effects on host
hemodynamics. Furthermore, optimization of pacing conditions
may be able to improve cardiac function in a damaged heart after in-
farction. For future studies, our laboratory is also planning to exam-
ine potential cardiac support mechanisms, such as assisting in blood
flow to peripheral areas or increasing coronary artery flow. Ott et al.
have reconstructed 3D heart-like cardiac tissue by reseeding neona-
tal rat cardiac cells into a decellularized rat whole heart by coronary
