Meldung

Es konnte eine Förderung im Charité 3R eingeworben werden. Der Titel des Projekts lautet: "The isolated large animal heart as a tool to refine and reduce animal experiments in cardiovascular research".

Complex experimental research using cardiovascular implants in acute large animal models is usually a procedure of several hours and limited by the capability of the model to reproduce realistic hemodynamic conditions.

In this project we propose the isolated large animal heart as a tool for cardiovascular research and refinement as well as reduction of animal experiments. Hearts from large anesthetized animals will be explanted in a procedure taking approx. 45min, vastly reducing the duration of the experiment for the live animal. By explanting hearts of animals from other experiments before inevitable euthanasia the amount of required experiments can be drastically reduced. This model offers the ability to adapt hemodynamic parameters over the entire pathophysiologic range and provides unique insights into advanced cardiac mechanics. Its simple accessibility facilitates the application of innovative methodologies to visualize the ventricular flow field. In previous work we could reach excellent success rates (>90%), even for complex experimental approaches.

The aim of this project is to establish the isolated large animal heart, refining animal experiments from the welfare and scientific point of view. This model permits for the first time the investigation of the complex interaction of cardiovascular implants with ventricular flow field and cardiac mechanics.