Regenerative heart valves: from simulation to replacement

Hoerstrup: Our next step is to apply this technology and support patients who suffer from a congenital heart defect. Since a heart valve features an intricate architecture, we will initially only engineer a tube, meaning a blood vessel via computer simulation for children with heart defects. This is less risky and less sophisticated from a technical perspective. If we achieve positive results with our computer model, our subsequent step would be a heart valve implantation.

What potential do you see in the field of bioengineering?

Hoerstrup: Aside from the cardiovascular field, attempts are made to implement tissue engineering solutions in essentially all organ and tissue systems. We can see a fundamental paradigm shift in this area. From our point of view, it is not just a trend but a sensible medical step to have regenerative or viable implants at our disposal. From a conceptual perspective, a prediction of how these implants develop once inside the body will also become increasingly important. For example, this enables you to predict the forces that act on a bone and project whether a patient’s weight or other characteristics necessitate a customized implant. If our continued experiments garner positive results and if we achieve better control thanks to our computer simulations, I would expect that this technology can and will be implemented in almost all bioengineering fields.