# Developing near-infrared responsive liquid crystal elastomers for an adjustable pulmonary artery band

> **NIH NIH F30** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · 2022 · $41,601

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Approximately 1 in 100 children born in the United State have a congenital heart defect (CHD). Nearly a
quarter of these children present with “critical” CHDs, requiring surgical intervention within the first year of life.
For patients in which a CHD is the source of pulmonary hypertension (e.g., the unrestricted flow of blood to the
lungs), a palliative pulmonary artery band (PAB) can be applied to regulate blood flow. Conventional PABs are
fixed and thus commit children to repeated surgeries if adjustments are needed due to altered hemodynamics
and/or to accommodate growth. As a result, the affected children suffer from high morbidity and mortality. This
proposal addresses this clinical need by developing and optimizing novel stimuli-responsive materials for
integration with PABs to permit adjustability.
 Light is an ideal stimulus to introduce minimally invasive reconfigurability to the PAB. The objective of
this research activity is to integrate photoresponsive materials with PABs to enable the diameter of the PAB to
be reconfigured via light delivered by an endovascular fiber-optic catheter through the artery wall. Aim 1 is
focused on material development and integration into novel PAB designs that leverage the stimuli-responsive
material. Aim 2 will assess the cellular and host responses to the stimuli-responsive material and develop
strategies to engineer these responses if necessary. Long-term, the evolution of stimuli-responsive materials will
lead to a wide variety of growth-accommodating and shape-changing medical devices that will improve patient
outcomes and quality of life.
 This collaborative research project will be undertaken at the University of Colorado Boulder with
mentorship and support from Dr. Timothy White and Dr. Kristi Anseth. The training plan includes development
of technical skills (e.g. polymer chemistry, medical device design, and biological testing of biomaterials) and
professional skills (e.g. communication skills, career development, and scientific outreach). In sum, this
application will provide the applicant with invaluable training for his future career as a surgeon-scientist focused
on translating novel biomaterials into impactful medical devices and technologies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10537663
- **Project number:** 1F30HL164047-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
- **Principal Investigator:** Nathaniel Phillip Skillin
- **Activity code:** F30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $41,601
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-17 → 2026-08-16

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10537663

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10537663, Developing near-infrared responsive liquid crystal elastomers for an adjustable pulmonary artery band (1F30HL164047-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10537663. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*