Fiber-Reinforced Heart Valves

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation of fibrin-based tissue engineered heart valves with a tubular leaflet construct have been developed as an alternative to invasive traditional surgical heart valve implantation. In general, they are well suited for the pulmonary position, but display insufficient mechanical properties for the aortic position. To enable the application of tissue-engineered valves in the systemic circulation, the tissue is reinforced with a textile scaffold. However, the textile cannot be blindly applied to the valves. Increasing the strength requires more reinforcement, but too much reinforcement will make the valve too stiff and decrease functionality. Therefore, a computational framework will be developed to optimize fiber orientation and density in heart valves. This will involve advancements in tissue and textile material modelling, finite element technology, in-vitro experimental characterization, and manufacturing.