Alignment of human cardiomyocytes on laser patterned biphasic core/shell nanowire assemblies

The management of end stage heart failure patients is only possible by heart transplantation or by the implantation of artificial hearts as a bridge for later transplantation. However, these therapeutic strategies are limited by a lack of donor hearts and by the associated complications, such as coagulation and infection, due to the used artificial mechanical circulatory assist devices. Therefore, new strategies for myocardial regenerative approaches are under extensive research to produce contractile myocardial tissue in the future to replace non-contractile myocardial ischemic and scarred tissue. Different approaches, such as cell transplantation, have been studied intensively. Although successful approaches have been observed, there are still limitations to the application. It is envisaged that myocardial tissue engineering can be used to help replace infarcted non-contractile tissue. The developed tissue should later mimic the aligned fibrillar structure of the extracellular ...

Karin Kiefer, Juseok Lee, Ayman Haidar, Marina Martinez Mir?, Cagri Kaan Akkan, Michael Veith, Oral Cenk Aktas and Hashim Abdul-Khaliq

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