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Glenn R. Gaudette, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and
Surgery.
Funding through the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the
New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research.
Figure 1. Regional function (in mmHg)
in a tissue engineered scaffold eight weeks after implantation.
Inside the red dotted line is the implanted scaffold, which
is producing useful mechanical work. |
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Myocardial cells have long thought to be terminally differentiated. This
means that patients with myocardial infarctions do not have the ability
to replace the dead tissue with newly formed and fully functional tissue.
Professor Gaudette’s laboratory is using in vivo tissue engineering
to regenerate functional myocardium (Figure 1). By using engineering techniques
developed in his laboratory, Professor Gaudette’s research team
is able to determine mechanical function in regions of myocardial regeneration.
A second area of research is the revascularization of ischemic tissue
in the heart. Together with his collaborators, Professor Gaudette has
developed a polymer to deliver growth factors important in the development
of new blood vessels. By determining function in many small areas of the
revascularized heart, the efficacy of the delivery vehicle and growth
factors can accurately be assessed.
Undergraduate students have played, and will continue to play, an important
role in the research conducted in the laboratory. Projects that will be
available to the students include: the determination of the relationship
between myocardial regeneration and regional stress through the use of
a finite element model; determination of the material properties of novel
scaffolds used for in vivo tissue engineering; and analysis of regional
myocardial blood flow in revascularization of ischemic tissue.
Contact Information
email:
url:
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