Establishment of a heart support system as a contractile membrane based on the pericardium

Third party funded individual grant


Start date : 01.05.2016

End date : 31.03.2021

Extension date: 15.07.2022


Biventricular model rat heart Left ventricle Purkinje network

Project details

Scientific Abstract

This project contains the establishment of a heart support system as a contractile membrane based on the pericardium to minimize the consequences of severe heart disease and to maintain proper cardiac function. The project is a research cooperation between the Chair of Applied Dynamics and the Pediatric Cardiology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and is funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.

The project includes the study of cardiac function under pathological and normal conditions by developing computer models of the heart, which are validated with experimental data of pediatric cardiology of the University of Erlangen Nuremberg. The clinical measurements and experimental data, as well as the simulation model are based on rat hearts. Subsequently, a cardiac support system based on a membrane is to be designed to improve or at least maintain heart function under pathological conditions.

In particular at the Chair of Applied Dynamics, we are focusing on the development of the underlying computational heart model including the anatomy, morphology, electrophysiology and also the fluid-structure interaction to be able to build up the optimized heart support system but also to better understand the function of the heart and thus to predict or early detect cardiac dysfunctions and bring new treatments to the clinic. 

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