Student Photo Competition 2018
17. Hossein Tavassoli - FSET - From Microchip to heart repair
The life of all of us depends on the second to second uninterrupted function of our heart. Cardiovascular disease affects 1 in 5 Australians and kills 1 every 12 minutes. To mend the broken heart, several drugs, surgeries and devices have been developed. However, none of these therapies can regenerate the damaged heart tissue! Similar to what happens in some animals. For example, zebrafish can repair its heart at any time of its life– much like a lizard that can grow back its tail. In my research, I’m trying to find a way to understand the mechanism of heart cell interactions in mice to uncover this mystery and to apply it for human heart treatments.
In my PhD, I use microfabrication and 3D-Printing technology, to design and make microchips that resembles the natural environment of cardiac cells; to model heart vascularization on a micro-chip. In our lab, we have discovered a novel population of stem-like cells during heart development called Progenitor Endothelial Cells (PECs). Our early data indicate that PECs, can make blood vessels in the mouse heart. This successfully happens in my microchip as well.
In this image, I have cultured the heart beating cells (the red ones) with the PECs (the green cells) to see if they can model the heart function: the red cells are nicely beating in the video, and the green cells prime together to form the vasculature (the right lower corner of the image). At the moment, I am looking at how these cells communicate which each other and which molecules and proteins regulate these cardiac cell function.
17. Hossein Tavassoli - FSET - From Microchip to heart repair
The life of all of us depends on the second to second uninterrupted function of our heart. Cardiovascular disease affects 1 in 5 Australians and kills 1 every 12 minutes. To mend the broken heart, several drugs, surgeries and devices have been developed. However, none of these therapies can regenerate the damaged heart tissue! Similar to what happens in some animals. For example, zebrafish can repair its heart at any time of its life– much like a lizard that can grow back its tail. In my research, I’m trying to find a way to understand the mechanism of heart cell interactions in mice to uncover this mystery and to apply it for human heart treatments.
In my PhD, I use microfabrication and 3D-Printing technology, to design and make microchips that resembles the natural environment of cardiac cells; to model heart vascularization on a micro-chip. In our lab, we have discovered a novel population of stem-like cells during heart development called Progenitor Endothelial Cells (PECs). Our early data indicate that PECs, can make blood vessels in the mouse heart. This successfully happens in my microchip as well.
In this image, I have cultured the heart beating cells (the red ones) with the PECs (the green cells) to see if they can model the heart function: the red cells are nicely beating in the video, and the green cells prime together to form the vasculature (the right lower corner of the image). At the moment, I am looking at how these cells communicate which each other and which molecules and proteins regulate these cardiac cell function.