Designing a bioreactor to test mechanical properties of decellularized heart valves

Sammanfattning: Aortic valvular disease is a severe ailment that causes great suffering and many deaths worldwide. The exponentially increasing prevalence of the disease has accelerated the demand of a new functioning valve prosthesis. A new approach is to decellularize homograft heart valves, which has demonstrated promising results in clinical trials. The Lung Bioengineering and Regeneration Lab in Lund has developed a new method to decellularize human heart valves with containing cardiac tissue, yet questions remain as to how they function \textit{in vivo}. The aim of this project is to design and build a customized bioreactor in order to test the mechanical function of the decellularized heart valves with cardiac tissue. The design and methods used sought to create a bioreactor that allowed testing of valves with various sizes in a nontoxic environment which mimics the flow dynamics of a working heart. Most parts in the bioreactor were 3D-printed at Xlab in Lund with PETG filament. The project resulted in a bioreactor which enabled testing of decellularized valves with different diameters during static and pulsatile flow. The bioreactor creates the opportunity to investigate the working valve in real time. The methods used in this project are indicative, but not conclusive. Future efforts should focus on using a different manufacturing process and should accurately measure pressures up- and downstream of the valve to validate it's function.