09.09.2020New publication in Nature Reviews Cardiology by M.Y. Emmert and colleagues

After surgical valve repair or replacement has been the standard of care for decades, transcatheter heart valve replacement has revolutionized the field of valvular heart disease. Despite this progressive technical evolution, to date, the clinically available prostheses for both surgical and transcatheter heart valve replacement have considerable limitations. Next-generation tissue-engineered heart valves (TEHVs) with repair, remodelling and regenerative capacity can address such drawbacks and may therefore provide a promising therapeutic alternative which may be particularly beneficial for younger patients. In this review, the authors present a comprehensive overview of current clinically adopted heart valve prostheses, with a focus on transcatheter heart valve prostheses. Next, the different concepts of heart valve tissue engineering, with emphasis on off-the-shelf TEHV technologies, are thoroughly discussed summarizing their latest preclinical and clinical evidence. Thereafter, the ongoing scientific, regulatory, and clinical challenges of these technologies are illustrated and critically discussed.

The work was a joint effort of several international institutions such as the German Heart Center and the Charite Berlin, the Harvard University and the Eindhoven University of Technology under the lead of the University of Zurich. The article was written by Emanuela S. Fioretta, Sarah E. Motta, and Maximilian Y. Emmert, with the contribution of Valentina Lintas, Sandra Loerakker, Kevin K. Parker, Frank P. T. Baaijens, Volkmar Falk, and Simon P. Hoerstrup. The full article, published in Nature Reviews Cardiology, can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41569-020-0422-8