Mechanical design of a 3D stretchable scaffold for the in vitro modelling of fibrotic cardiac tissue

Myocardial infarction is the primary cause of cardiac fibrosis, which often evolves into a condition known as heart failure. Alternative treatments to heart transplantation for late-stage heart failure are under investigation. In compliance with the 3Rs principle (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement), in-vitro devices are of a great interest since they replicate the behavior of cardiac tissue and reduce the employment of animal testing. In this thesis, a previously designed stretchable scaffold was characterized to prove its suitability for the in vitro engineering of human cardiac fibrotic tissue. A one-dimensional finite element method (FEM) model was developed and validated by an analytical model for different scaffold thicknesses. A mathematical relationship between stiffness and scaffold geometrical parameters was derived. Static uniaxial tensile tests confirmed results from the analytical and FEM model. In the future, the designed models could be employed to assess new regenerative medicine therapies, reducing animal experimentation and ensuring superior predictivity of human tissue behavior. The work is part of BIORECAR ERC project (grant agreement: 772168).