Heart & Vascular Disease

Bioengineering synthetic arteries and devices

In 2007 Dr Martin Ng recieved a start up grant from the Medical Foundation to support a collaboration with Professor Anthony Weiss (biochemistry) and Professor Marcella Bilek (applied physics) which aimed to develop highly biocompatible materials for cardiovascular conduits and next generation cardiovascular devices.

Current synthetic conduits for vasuclar bypass surgery are stiff and highly thrombogenic, making them unsuitable for all but large calibre vascular drafting. In recent work, Dr Ng has found that synthetic elastin not only has favourable physical properties but also very favourable biological properties, including very low thrombogenicity and the capacity to facilitate biocompatible cell interactions.