FLOGEN Logo
In Honor of Nobel Laureate Dr. Aaron Ciechanover

SIPS 2025 logo
SIPS 2025 takes place from November 17-20, 2025 at the Dusit Thani Mactan Resort in Cebu, Philippines

Honoree Banner

More than 400 abstracts submitted from over 50 countries
Abstracts Still Accepted for a Limited Time



Featuring many Nobel Laureates and other Distinguished Guests


Back

MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF 3D PRINTED PATTERNED MEMBRANES FOR CARDIAC TISSUE ENGINEERING: AN EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDY
Aurelia Poerio1
1Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France

PAPER: 108/Biomaterials/Regular (Oral) OS
SCHEDULED: 14:00/Thu. 20 Nov. 2025/Jasmin

ABSTRACT:

Myocardial infarction can cause irreversible damage to heart tissue. A promising therapeutic strategy involves the use of cardiac patches or epicardial restraint devices to support and protect the heart [1]. A key challenge in fabricating effective cardiac patches lies in replicating the myocardium’s fibrillar structure, anisotropy, and local elasticity. Jehl et al. [2] characterized the mechanical properties of the myocardial wall of pig cardiac tissue by performing nanoindentation measures on tissue slices of the long axis of the left ventricle. Their results showed variations in stiffness according to the local orientation of myofibers within the myocardial tissue. Among the different strategies used to create anisotropic and cardiac patches and with local elasticity, 3D bioprinting is one of the most promising [3]. This study aims to demonstrate that 3D printing a biomaterial with tailored anisotropic geometry—by adjusting both the design and the physico-chemical properties of the bioink—can produce patch geometries covering a wide range of elastic moduli. We developed a bioink composed of chitosan, gelatin, and guar gum, and used it to fabricate anisotropic membranes via 3D printing. These membranes were mechanically characterized using tensile tests. Experimental data were then used to construct a numerical model capable of predicting the elastic properties of membranes with alternative internal geometries. 3D bioprinting enabled the fabrication of a variety of internal geometries, allowing full customization of the patch to match a patient’s anatomy and pathology. The same biomaterial formulation could yield different mechanical behaviors simply by altering the pattern. The numerical model validated the experimental findings and effectively predicted the elastic properties of new geometries, demonstrating that membrane elasticity can be tuned by adjusting pore size and orientation. This approach, combining 3D bioprinting with numerical simulation, provides a fast and flexible method for designing cardiac patches with tunable elastic properties that closely mimic the anisotropy of the native myocardium. This strategy has potential applications beyond cardiology, in broader fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering.

REFERENCES:
[1] Clarke, S.A.; Ghanta, R.K.; Ailawadi, G.; Holmes, J.W. Cardiac restraint and support following myocardial infarction. In Cardiovascular and Cardiac Therapeutic Devices; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2013; pp. 169–206.
[2] Jehl, J.P.; Dan, P.; Voignier, A.; Tran, N.; Bastogne, T.; Maureira, P.; Cleymand, F. Transverse isotropic modelling of left-ventricle passive filling: mechanical characterization for epicardial biomaterial manufacturing. J. Mech. Behav. Biomed. Mater. 2021, 119, 104492.
[3] Kalhori, D.; Zakeri, N.; Zafar-Jafarzadeh, M.; Moroni, L.; Solati-Hashjin, M. Cardiovascular 3D bioprinting: A review on cardiac tissue development. Bioprinting 2022, 28, e00221.