Find ways to control heart disease with MEMS chips

At Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, medical researchers are experimenting with the use of a newly developed microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microfluidic chip to study the causes and prevention of cardiovascular disease...

EETimes Florida reports that for the study of the causes and prevention of cardiovascular disease, the future will not be limited to anatomizing rat or cultured heart cells in culture dishes. At Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, medical researchers are experimenting with a newly developed microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microfluidic chip to achieve this goal.

The chip mimics the precise blood flow in the arteries when fat and cholesterol accumulate on the internal arterial wall plaque. In living tissue, the resulting atherosclerosis limits blood flow and can lead to heart attacks. The most fascinating part of this chip is the ability to mimic the inflammatory response of cardiovascular cells, which cuts off blood supply. If these reactions can be suppressed, heart disease will not happen.

In the experiment, the researchers first used artificial blood to perfect the flow path through the microfluidic "blood vessels" and then used real blood to simulate the inflammatory response that needed to be eliminated to prevent heart attacks. Because the response of the inner wall cells of the blood vessels can be closely observed on the chip, the team claims that their atherosclerosis modeling method is far superior to the method of simulating conditions using cultured cells or laboratory animals.

The team hopes to learn how to regulate vasoconstriction by a variety of means to prevent or at least alleviate heart attacks. So far, the researchers' efforts have focused on the overall biomechanics of cardiac blood flow and accurately modeled the shape and geometry of the heart's blood vessels to pinpoint the cause of vasoconstriction.

This chip-only chip has two stacked chambers separated by a flexible polymer membrane to simulate conditions that cause a heart attack. The bottom chamber contains compressed air and the top chamber contains blood (or blood sample test fluid). To accurately simulate a real heart, the researchers cultured endothelial cells from the coronary veins to fill the fluid-filled chamber. The system operates by pumping air into a flexible plenum that pushes the membrane to simulate a blocked blood flow in the artery.

Simulate atherosclerosis on a chip and assess vascular stenosis and blood health before a heart attack. (Source: Han Wei Hou)

The researchers found that as vascular occlusion worsens, endothelial cells release a protein that causes atherosclerosis. When using real blood simulations, the accumulation of immune cells develops faster into the lipids that the arteries block the plaque.

According to Han Weihou, head of chip research and development, the chip mimics the accuracy of these well-known heart disease precursors, making it an ideal device for testing new therapies.

The team detailed the findings in these articles: "Atherosclerosis-on-a-Chip: A Tunable 3D Stenotic Blood Vessel Microdevice" and 1 An article published on the 2nd of the month "A tunable microfluidic 3D stenosis model to study leukocyte-endothelial interactions in atherosclerosis. )".

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