Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Existing treatments do not allow for effective repair after the heart tissue is damaged. Cell therapy shows promise in restoring mechanical function to damaged areas of the heart. Existing delivery methods provide too low of engraftment rates for clinical use, however, the use of fibrin sutures provides a new opportunity. Currently, loading the cells onto the suture for engraftment into the heart is inefficient. This project created a system to load cells onto fibrin sutures. The system consists of a syringe pump attached to a 3D printed device with four parallel channels. A cell suspension is passed through the device with the sutures loaded into it. This system was shown to successfully deliver cells to fibrin sutures.

• 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

• Erlandson, Timothy Carl
• Gagnon, Matthew Robert
• Vitorino Prata, Tatiana Maria
• Kelly, Sean M.

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-043014-174138

Advisor

• Gaudette, Glenn R.

Year

• 2014

Date created

• 2014-04-30

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Biomedical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright