“Experimental and Computational Biomaterials for Applications in Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering”
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Abstract: Cardiovascular disease, which is responsible for 38% of the total deaths in the United States, has been the number one killer for more than one hundred years. Tissue engineering technology now offers unparalleled opportunities to repair and/or replace damaged cardiovascular tissues through the construction of protein-based, biomimetic tissue grafts. Because elastin and collagen are the two major structural proteins of human arteries, attempts have been made to construct an arterial graft using collagen and elastin. However, one of the hurdles is to achieve sufficient mechanical strength for a protein-based graft. In order to overcome this limitation, this work is sought to obtain a fundamental understanding of the structure-mechanical property relationship of protein-based materials (e.g., elastin and collagen) by combining experimental characterizations with a constitutive modeling study. The goal is to design protein-based materials and design/fabricate tissue constructs with appropriate mechanical properties. Future research directions are discussed.