Soft matter guided self-assembly of oscillating heart cells into functional macro-myocardium (A18)

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Microscopically, cardiac tissue and engineered heart muscle consists of a network of coupled active (oscillating) and passive cells, i.e. cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts, embedded in an extracellular matrix providing viscoelastic mechanical coupling. The main objective of this project is to understand how the nonlinear dynamics of an ensemble of coupled electrical and mechanical cellular oscillators on the microscopic scale results in collective, complex spatio-temporal behavior on a macroscopic (tissue) scale. We will investigate this research question using high-resolution imaging and data driven numerical modeling applied to engineered heart muscles.