Research Report: Optimising a Myocardium-like Hydrogel for Enhanced Cardiomyocyte Culture
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Hi! I'm Naviya, an Engineering undergraduate at the University of Cambridge (Newnham College). My passion is biomedical engineering, particularly the applications of technology in medicine and public health. I am interested in medical devices, drug delivery, nanotechnology to name some of the very significant (and cool!) technologies being developed and implemented in the field today.
My research this summer investigates hydrogel systems that permit acoustic patterning of cardiomyocytes in the pre-crosslinked, fluid state, while providing sufficient structural integrity post-crosslinking to preserve alignment and support tissue maturation. These objectives will be achieved via an acoustic patterning setup including CMs embedded in various hydrogel concentrations as well as comparative mechanical testing of these hydrogels as a “synthetic cardiac slice” to closely mirror native characteristics.
