UMN awarded $3.7M to prepare for clinical trials of lab-created pediatric heart vessels that grow with the recipients
A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team of researchers including BME Professor Robert Tranquillo has received a $3.7 million grant over the next four years from the U.S. Department of Defense to prepare for a human clinical trial of artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab that grow with the patient. If successful, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in children with congenital heart defects.
The funding is part of the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs that fund programs that are “transforming healthcare through innovative and impactful research.”
One of the greatest challenges in vessel bioengineering is designing a vessel that will grow with its new owner. Recipients who have heart defects at birth often outgrow current vessel grafts and need to have larger vessels implanted several times as they grow.
“This grant is a major step forward and will allow us to do everything that's necessary to get to Day 1 of a first clinical trial where we would implant one of our lab-created blood vessels into an infant with a heart defect called discontinuous pulmonary arteries or hemitruncus” said Prof. Tranquillo, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.
“If all goes well, this clinical trial could begin within about 18 months,” Prof. Tranquillo said.