Regeneration of Cardiac Tissue Assisted by Bioactive Implants

Heart failure is the end-stage of many cardiovascular diseases, but the leading cause is the presence of a large scar due acute to myocardial infarction. Current therapeutic treatments under development consist in cellular cardiomyoplasty where myocardial cells or stem cells are implanted alone or encapsulated in natural scaffolds (collagens) and grafted onto infarcted ventricles with the hope that cells will contribute to the generation of new myocardial tissue. This approach seems to have a beneficial effect although it is not completely understood and optimized, yet. Thus, the urgent need of better therapeutic platforms is imminent. In view of this, we created a small interdisciplinary consortium (RECATABI) with experts in areas such as material sciences, tissue engineering, stem cell technologies and clinical cardiovascular research. RECATABI will integrate and synergise their capacities in order to obtain a novel clinical platform to regenerate necrotic ischemic tissues after cardiac infarct with a simple one-time patch technology application. The consortium will accomplish this by fabricating nanoscale engineered biomaterials and scaffolds that will match the exact biomechanical and biophysical requirements of the implanted tissue. In addition, the construct may induce rapid vascularization to ensure tissue remodelling and regeneration into a newly functional myocardium. The regenerative capacity of the implants loaded with pre-adapted cells (biomechanically and biophysically trained) will be assessed in small (rodents) and large (sheep) animal models.