# A Translational Bioreactor for the Construction of Off-the-Shelf, Patient-Specific Heart Tissue for the Permanent Correction of Congenital Heart Defects

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2020 · $35,751

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common birth defect worldwide and the number one
killer of live-born infants in the United States. Approximately 1% of infants are born with a CHD, and
25% of them require surgery within one year of birth. The current materials available to pediatric heart
surgeons for these reconstructive surgeries are exclusively non-living and inert; they do not grow with
the child or restore heart function while also increasing the risk of follow-up surgeries and arrhythmias.
Furthermore, since the heart develops very early in embryogenesis, it is unlikely that CHDs will ever be
fully preventable. Therefore, the most promising approach for the clinical correction of CHDs is to
provide surgeons with living, engineered cardiac tissue that can fully integrate with the heart and
permanently restore heart function. The overall goal of this proposal is to create suturable,
autologous induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiac tissue patches (CTPs) in an
automated bioreactor system that can be used for the correction of full wall-thickness CHDs.
Towards this goal, my lab has identified amniotic fluid cells (AFCs) as a suitable source of patient-
specific cells. AFCs belong to the baby, can be safely harvested before birth, and can be reprogrammed
to iPSC, which I have successfully differentiated to several cardiac cell types. In addition, my lab has
developed a suturable, fully-degradable scaffold that supports iPSC encapsulation and subsequent 3D
cardiomyocyte differentiation. These preliminary results direct the project hypothesis that a hands-off
bioreactor can be used to generate and maintain living and autologous CTPs, which will integrate with
the heart and permanently correct full-thickness heart defects. To achieve our overall goal, we will next
pursue two specific aims: 1) Construct an automated perfusion bioreactor that can drive the
differentiation, growth, and maintenance of the CTPs in a hands-off manner, and 2) Assess the CTPs
in vivo using our established rat model of a full-thickness right ventricular defect (a myocardial
replacement model). Collectively, this technology will be promising for the permanent correction of
many CHDs while also establishing a translational method for the production of engineered tissues that
could be applied to the entire spectrum of tissue engineering.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10067670
- **Project number:** 1F31HL154606-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** Dillon K Jarrell
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $35,751
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10067670

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10067670, A Translational Bioreactor for the Construction of Off-the-Shelf, Patient-Specific Heart Tissue for the Permanent Correction of Congenital Heart Defects (1F31HL154606-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10067670. Licensed CC0.

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