Nanopatterning Wrinkles Into Biodegradable Materials For Aligning Heart Cells

Myocardial infarctions (MI) are the most common cause of death in industrialized countries¹. It would be beneficial to develop a method to replace damaged cardiac tissue, preserving functionality and reducing further complications associated with remodeling of the heart after MI.  Although the main goal of this project is to deliver cells to a post MI heart, cells alone cannot offer structural support or physical cues such as alignment in orienting cellular integration.  Wrinkled polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nano- and micro-topographies have been shown to align cardiac cells³.  However, PDMS is not biocompatible, and requires a laborious second step to separate the aligned cells prior to implantation.  Poly (glycerol-sebacate) (PGS), an inexpensive synthetic polymer, holds much promise in the field of tissue engineering^1,2. It is biocompatible, degradable and its elasticity can be controlled making it an ideal material for implantation.  We propose to mold PGS onto wrinkled silicon wafers to create a micro-patterned and biodegradable surface to align cardiac cells for implantation.  We hypothesize that the nano/microscale structures and the structural support of the PGS mold will also allow integration into native tissue. This study plays an important role in developing a dynamic roll of materials in cardiac patch which may eventually lead to prevention of cardiac degradation after MI or the need for heart transplantation.