Sanchita Bhat 

BioE Ph.D. Proposal Presentation  

Time and Date: 11:30 AM, Monday, August 8th, 2022  

Location:   

https://gatech.zoom.us/j/94185923025 

Advisor:   

Lakshmi Prasad Dasi, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)  

Committee:  

Ajit P. Yoganathan, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)  

Christopher Breuer, M.D. (Nationwide Children’s Hospital)  

Rudolph Gleason, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)  

Scott Hollister, Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology)  

Development and biomechanical assessment of fully resolvable heart valve replacements for deployment in utero   

Congenital heart diseases (CHDs) account for nearly one third of all congenital defects. Patients born with complex congenital cardiac anomalies leading to single ventricle physiology are often treated with existing options which are palliative and not curative. Over the past decade, several clinical trials evaluating the utility of fetal valvuloplasty have demonstrated plasticity and regenerative capacity of the fetal heart. Performing fetal valvuloplasty reverses the ventricular hypoplasia, however most patients still require repeated postnatal valve replacements. A possible solution to avoiding repeat surgeries can be integrating tissue engineering with heart valves to develop a tissue engineered heart valve (TEHV). Fetal valve replacement with a TEHV will serve as a scaffold and provide the opportunity to restore flow and biventricular heart function with a living neovalve created from an individual’s own cells. Therefore, the objective of this proposal is to design a TEHV for fetal deployment to overcome the current lack of biodegradable valves that do not accommodate for growth of the patient. The overall hypothesis is that a TEHV with comprehensive biomechanical information on design, degradation and experimental characteristics will serve as a paradigm for future in utero device deployments. This TEHV will allow possible restoration of flow, enable reversal of ventricular hypoplasia, and restore biventricular anatomy. Towards this goal, this project will focus on the following specific aims: 1) Design, manufacture and analyze stress distributions on stent prototypes, 2) Design, manufacture and characterize biodegradable leaflet materials and 3) Perform in vitro flow analysis of established design prototypes. 

The completion of this work will yield insights into (1) the challenges in developing a fully resolvable fetal size heart valve replacement (2) design considerations that will dictate the deployment mechanism and degradation outcome.