Heart valves (HVs) are fluidic control components of the heart that ensure unidirectional
blood flow during the cardiac cycle. However, this description does not adequately describe …

Valvular heart diseases (VHD) are a major health burden, affecting millions of people
worldwide. The treatments for such diseases rely on medicine, valve repair, and artificial …

To date, there are no constitutive models for either the natural or bioprosthetic aortic valve
(AV), in part due to experimental complications related to the AV's small size and …

Heart valves (HVs) are cardiac structures whose physiological function is to ensure directed
blood flow through the heart over the cardiac cycle. While primarily passive structures that …

Substitute heart valves composed of human or animal tissues have been used since the
early 1960s, when aortic valves obtained fresh from human cadavers were transplanted to …

Due to the increasing number of heart valve diseases, there is an urgent clinical need for off-
the-shelf tissue engineered heart valves. While significant progress has been made toward …

Tissue-engineered heart valves have been proposed by physicians and scientists alike to
be the ultimate solution for treating valvular heart disease. Rather than replacing a diseased …

The native human heart valve leaflet contains a layered microstructure comprising a
hierarchical arrangement of collagen, elastin, proteoglycans and various cell types. Here …

Background—An estimated 275 000 patients undergo heart valve replacement each year.
However, existing solutions for valve replacement are complicated by the morbidity …

Dynamic flexure is a major mode of deformation in the native heart valve cusp, and may
effect the mechanical and biological development of tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV) …