Hot Metal Campus Celebrates D’Amore Lab’s NIH Grant
The D’Amore Lab, led by Dr. Antonio D’Amore, at Bridgeside Point II on the Hot Metal Campus, has been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute R01 grant for nearly $800,000 total funding for their project, Structural Biomimicry to Improve Engineered Heart Valve Leaflet Function and Remodeling. Dr. D’Amore is an Associate Professor and Core Member at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
In this project, the D’Amore Lab will advance bioengineering approaches to treat pediatric heart valve diseases by addressing two key research gaps identified in both pre-clinical trials and the first two clinical trials exploring the use of tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs), which mimic the structure and function of natural heart valve tissue, to restore heart valve function.
“The proposed research is relevant to public health because it represents an alternative tissue engineered heart valve strategy aiming to better address pulmonary valve congenital malformations,” said the proposal.
In the first two clinical trials completed in this emerging field of research, 5 of 18 pediatric patients developed pulmonary insufficiency, which was attributed to premature polymer degradation and inadequate control of leaflet thickness distribution of the TEHV.
The D’Amore Lab hypothesizes that incorporating structural biomimicry, a biomaterials design approach that can duplicate native tissue properties, is central to maintaining valve function and facilitating tissue remodeling.
As part of this NIH-funded work, the D’Amore Lab will first fabricate prototypes to control the morphology, micro-architecture, mechanics, and degradation of the engineered leaflets. The research will then evaluate prototypes in laboratory and in vivo studies to assess mechanics, cell infiltration, and material degradation at 1, 6, and 12 months.
“As more effective solutions to address pulmonary valve congenital malformations are needed, our contribution is significant because structural biomimicry applied to the PV would advance design and bioprocessing strategies and would provide the proof-of-concept for a new class of engineered valves capable of alleviating the clinical burden of valve replacement,” said the proposal.
In the long term, the D’Amore Lab seeks to develop tailored structural properties of TEHVs to better treat a variety of heart valve diseases. According to a recent study, nearly 67,000 deaths in the United States were related to valvular heart disease in 2023, representing approximately 2% of all-cause mortality.