Jianyi “Jay” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., T. Michael and Gillian Goodrich Endowed Chair of Engineering Leadership, UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Medicine and of Engineering, finished 2021 with the notice of a new R01 award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The $2.754 million, four-year grant allows Zhang to study, “Myocardial remuscularization by cardiac patch delivery of epicardial FSTL1 and CCND2 overexpressing cadiomyocytes,” the grant’s title.

Zhang’s research suggests that promotion of myocyte proliferation and understanding the regulators of the myocyte cell cycle could have a highly significant impact on the management of heart failure. Heart failure on the cellular and molecular level occurs due to the loss of the contractile unit of the left ventricle, or cardiomyocytes. The grant aims to use bioprinted 3D cardiac tissue models to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the myocyte pro-proliferative effect of follistatin like-1 protein (FSTL1) treatment in vitro. They will assess signaling pathways to promote remusclarization in the mouse model of myocardial infarction, and assess the pre-clinical potential of a bioengineered pre-vascularized muscle patch device in treating acute myocardial infarction in a pig model of ischemia-reperfusion.

As stated in the grant proposal, “The findings of this project will establish a novel generation of personalized cardiac patch devices for remuscularization of heart with postinfarction LV remodeling.”