Developing near-infrared responsive liquid crystal elastomers for an adjustable pulmonary artery band

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Project Summary Approximately 1 in 100 children born in the United State have a congenital heart defect (CHD). Nearly a quarter of these children present with “critical” CHDs, requiring surgical intervention within the first year of life. For patients in which a CHD is the source of pulmonary hypertension (e.g., the unrestricted flow of blood to the lungs), a palliative pulmonary artery band (PAB) can be applied to regulate blood flow. Conventional PABs are fixed and thus commit children to repeated surgeries if adjustments are needed due to altered hemodynamics and/or to accommodate growth. As a result, the affected children suffer from high morbidity and mortality. This proposal addresses this clinical need by developing and optimizing novel stimuli-responsive materials for integration with PABs to permit adjustability. Light is an ideal stimulus to introduce minimally invasive reconfigurability to the PAB. The objective of this research activity is to integrate photoresponsive materials with PABs to enable the diameter of the PAB to be reconfigured via light delivered by an endovascular fiber-optic catheter through the artery wall. Aim 1 is focused on material development and integration into novel PAB designs that leverage the stimuli-responsive material. Aim 2 will assess the cellular and host responses to the stimuli-responsive material and develop strategies to engineer these responses if necessary. Long-term, the evolution of stimuli-responsive materials will lead to a wide variety of growth-accommodating and shape-changing medical devices that will improve patient outcomes and quality of life. This collaborative research project will be undertaken at the University of Colorado Boulder with mentorship and support from Dr. Timothy White and Dr. Kristi Anseth. The training plan includes development of technical skills (e.g. polymer chemistry, medical device design, and biological testing of biomaterials) and professional skills (e.g. communication skills, career development, and scientific outreach). In sum, this application will provide the applicant with invaluable training for his future career as a surgeon-scientist focused on translating novel biomaterials into impactful medical devices and technologies.