| Description | Tiny Hearts in Space: Engineered Heart Tissue for Modeling Cardiac Dysfunction in Microgravity
Nathan Sniadecki, Professor, UW Mechanical Engineering
Ty Higashi, Doctoral Student, UW Mechanical Engineering
Tuesday, Oct 13, 2020 @ 3:30pm
Recording: www.youtube.com…
Abstract: Spaceflight has been shown to have a negative impact on the heart of astronauts. To understand the effect of spaceflight on cardiac tissue, we developed 3D engineered heart tissues made from human induced pluripotent stems cells (hiPSC) to accomplish a unique study aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that investigated the effects of microgravity on cardiac tissue structure, contractile function, and gene expression. The tissues are made by casting hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes into a 3D matrix that is suspended between a pair of flexible silicone pillars. The configuration provides a more physiological environment for the cells than 2D culture and enables them to form functional cardiac tissues that contract and deflect the pillars. For the ISS study, we engineered a magnetic detection system that uses neodymium magnets that are embedded in the tips of the pillars and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors that track the motion of the embedded magnets. This detection system was designed to assess the contractile force and beating frequency of the tissues in real-time and to relay this data to earth using telemetry while the system is aboard the ISS. The EHTs were successfully launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on SpaceX-20 on March 6, 2020 where they remained for approximately 28 days before being returned to Earth. In this talk, we will discuss the engineering challenges that were faced with this mission and approaches that were used to achieve its success. The results of this study aboard the ISS is valuable not only to the future of spaceflight, but can also contribute to our understanding of age-related cardiac diseases here on Earth. Furthermore, we have recently repurposed this technology to address the current global problem by studying the effect of COVID-19 on the heart.Bios: Prof. Sniadecki is an expert in cell mechanics and the use of engineering and nanotechnology for understanding the mechanobiology of cells. He is the Director of the Heart Regeneration Program at UW Medicine and Associate Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland with Prof. Don DeVoe. He was a NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a Hartwell Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in Bioengineering with Prof. Chris Chen. He is a recipient of the NSF's CAREER award, DARPA's Young Faculty Award, UW's Kobayashi Professorship, and ASME's Lloyd Hamilton Donnell Award. Ty Higashi is doctoral student in the Cell Biomechanics Lab at UW Medicine's South Lake Union Campus. His dissertation work focuses of the application of mechanical loads to engineered heart tissue to mimic the conditions of afterload and preload on the heart. He is a co-inventor of the magnetic sensing technology used in this experiment and the lead engineer from UW on the ISS project. He received his B.S. in Engineering from Fort Lewis College, which is one of six Native American-serving, non-tribal colleges in the country. He is a recipient of the UW's Graduate Opportunities & Minority Achievement Program (GO-MAP) Presidential Fellowship and was awarded the NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship in 2019 (declined). * The seminar is part of the ME Graduate Seminar Series (ME 520) |
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