LEAP-HI: Towards a Paradigm of Thrombosis-Free Blood-contacting Devices

每年，心血管疾病的治疗需要数以千计的心脏辅助设备、数十万个心脏瓣膜、数百万个冠状动脉支架、数千万个血液透析器和数亿个导管。在所有这些医疗设备中，导致发病率和死亡率的主要原因是血液凝结，这导致数十亿美元的医疗成本和生产力损失。这一领先的美国繁荣、健康和基础设施工程奖(LEAP-HI)支持基础研究，以帮助减少医疗设备中的血液凝结。这项研究将使用前景看好的柔性材料和防凝血涂层来解决分子级、微型级和设备级的血液凝固问题。为了实现这一目标，这项研究将由一个包括化学、化学工程、机械工程、材料科学和生物医学工程专家在内的多学科团队进行。这项研究的结果有可能每年拯救数百万人的生命和数十亿美元，从而直接为美国的健康和繁荣做出贡献。此外，这些努力将鼓励代表性不足的少数民族参与STEM，并对工程教育产生积极影响。血液接触设备中的血栓主要是由于准静态条件下血液与材料之间的不良相互作用，以及动态条件下的流动停滞和超生理剪应力造成的。这项研究假设，定制的水化层和柔性材料的组合可以制造出无血栓形成的血液接触器。一个多学科团队将通过分子动力学模拟来测试这一假设，以了解水化层的作用，界面光谱来实验表征水化层，基于分子动力学模拟和界面光谱的新型抗血栓涂层的制造，血液-材料相互作用的微观评估，以及新型抗血栓涂层和柔性材料的设备规模组合。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Every year, treatment of cardiovascular diseases requires thousands of heart assists, hundreds of thousands of heart valves, millions of coronary stents, tens of millions of hemodialyzers, and hundreds of millions of catheters. In all these medical devices, the main cause of morbidity and mortality is blood-clotting, which results in billions of dollars in medical costs and lost productivity. This Leading Engineering for America's Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP-HI) award supports fundamental research to help reduce blood-clotting in medical devices. The research will use promising flexible materials and clotting-resistant coatings to address blood-clotting at the molecular-scale, micro-scale and the device-scale. To accomplish this, the research will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team including experts in chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and biomedical engineering. The results of the research have the potential to save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year, thereby directly contributing to America’s health and prosperity. Furthermore, these efforts will encourage STEM participation of underrepresented minorities and positively impact engineering education.Thrombosis in blood-contacting devices is primarily due to poor blood-material interactions in quasi-static conditions, and flow stagnation and supraphysiological shear stresses in dynamic conditions. This research hypothesizes that a combination of tailored hydration layers and flexible materials can lead to thrombosis-free blood-contacting devices. A multidisciplinary team will test this hypothesis through molecular dynamics simulations to understand the role of hydration layers, interfacial spectroscopy to experimentally characterize the hydration layers, fabrication of novel anti-thrombotic coatings based on the molecular dynamics simulations and interfacial spectroscopy, micro-scale evaluation of the blood-material interactions, and device-scale combination of the novel anti-thrombotic coatings and flexible materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.