Cardiac repair using fibrin patch-based enhanced delivery of stem cells and novel strategies for fast examination of myocaridal energetics in vivo using 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Abstract

The dissertation is related to heart disease in both basic scientific and pre-clinic respects. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in the developed countries even with optimal medical treatment. Recently, the emerging stem cell biology has shown great potentials for cardiac repair. Using both large (swine) and small (rodent) animal models with ischemic heart disease, we examined the functional improvement of enhanced delivery of combined human embryonic stem cell-derived endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells via a fibrin 3D porous scaffold biomatrix. The integration of stem cell biology and tissue engineering has resulted in significant improvement of both regional and global left ventricle function as compared to untreated animals, demonstrating a promising therapeutic strategy of using this cell type and the novel mode of delivery.

As a most energy demanding organ, the heart energetic status is tightly associated with the organ's physiological and pathological conditions. Based on the ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging/spectroscopy techniques, we developed a noninvasive modality for rapid examination of cardiac energetics in vivo. The new platform will offer unprecedented understanding into the relationship between the cardiac energetic status and the organ's physiological/pathological conditions, and thus it is of great potential in both basic scientific research and clinical diagnosis.