Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Currently, heart transplantation is the treatment of choice for end-stage heart failure, but lack of donor hearts and risk of rejection remain a challenge. Research has shown that decellularized hearts, in which cells are removed from the cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM), can provide a scaffold for use in engineering patient-specific heart transplants. This project presents a low-cost, semi-automated, small-organ (ie. rat heart) decellularization bioreactor designed for cardiac research, Testing has shown that this device can successfully decellularize rat hearts, and offers functionality similar to commercial devices.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Amend, Mei Lee
• Perreault, Luke Roger
• Marengo, Kaitlyn Amie
• Azizi, Azarmeedokht Ghazanfari

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-043015-002234

Advisor

• Gaudette, Glenn R.

Year

• 2015

Date created

• 2015-04-30

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Biomedical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright