Integrated Calendar

The heart is a non-regenerating organ. Consequently, the loss of cardiac cells and formation of scar tissue after extensive myocardial infarction frequently leads to congestive heart failure. Given the scarcity of cardiac donors, a potential approach to treat the infarcted heart is to repopulate the ‘dead zone’ with cells capable of spontaneous contraction. Cellular therapy evolved to introduce cells into diseased areas and regain function. However, two main drawbacks of this approach are the lack of control of cell accumulation site after injection, and cell death before forming cell-cell or cell-matrix interactions. These shortfalls motivated the development of the tissue engineering concept, where 3-dimensional (3D) biomaterials serve as extracellular matrix-like scaffolds to the cells, enabling the cells to assemble into effective tissue substitutes, that may restore tissue or organ function. After transplantation the scaffolds either degrade or metabolize, eventually leaving a vital tissue instead of the defected tissue. In this talk I will describe cutting-edge technologies for engineering functional cardiac tissues, focusing on the design of new biomaterials mimicking the natural microenvironment of the heart, or releasing biofactors to promote stem cell recruitment and cardioprotection. I will also describe the concept of 3D bioprinting of tissues and organs, and the use of inorganic nanostructures and devices for monitoring, actuating and regulation of tissue performances in vitro and in vivo.

In Hebrew

11:00 – coffee, tea, and more