Biomaterials for cardiac tissue engineering
The theme looks at developing the potential of biomaterials for improving models of cardiovascular disease conditions and to examine their translational applications.
Some of the work includes work on studying differentiation potential of human stem cells (human induced pluripotent stem cells and human induced mesenchymal stem cells) on in situ nanofiber materials to understand its propensity towards producing in-vivo like cardiomyocytes and to apply various stimuli to improve their properties. A more recent approach involves probing the compatibility of genome tools (optogenetic CRISPR) and materials (electroconductive composites containing graphene, PLGA, PANI, etc) to produce optoelectronic responsive materials to understand and modulate mechanisms of cardiac diseases at the cellular level. Auxiliary to this is the development of 3D engineered models for cardiac and vascular conditions to mimic disease pathology in vitro.
Sarcomere organisation was improved in stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes differentiated on PCL nanofibers.