Yeah, we had an emergency this morning.
Is it quite rushy now that we start right away?
I don't mind.
We had a young patient who has acute aortic insufficiency
and we had to take him off on pump to replace the aortic valve.
So that was our emergency this morning.
If we replace a valve, we have two options.
We can use either a mechanical valve
or a bioprostesis, which consists of animal tissue.
Because these heart valves are not living,
they do not grow with the patients.
They can also not adapt or repair itself.
So in these younger patients, such a heart valve needs to be replaced
twice or three times or even more times during a lifetime.
Think about that being a young person,
you have to take medication till the end of your life.
You are always at risk.
If you go skiing, if you go play soccer,
to have a bleeding complication
or even a neurological complication due to bleeding.
So this is harmful for all the patients
and of course we try to improve.
In the IMFov project, we are developing a heart valve
that consists of living materials that can adapt in the human body
and can repair itself.
And we also expect that it can grow with the patients.
Our heart has four heart valves and a heart valve controls
the blood flow through our heart and through our body.
And in the case a heart valve is defect,
for instance, it's becoming too stiff to open and close
or it's leaky, you get very tired.
The heart has to work very, very hard
and your body gets exhausted.
And in that case, the valve needs to be replaced.
Scientists have been looking to create living heart valves
for about two decades.
It doesn't exist and we have created
or at least we are in the process of creating this.
The most fascinating thing is that we create
a polymer based valve that is so smart
to attract the right cells in the right movement
within the body to transform into a living heart valve.
So we actually make use of the processes in the body
that we call wounds repair.
We start with a material, a polymer.
It's a supramolecular polymer that has the right properties
to actually communicate with the processes in the human body.
And this polymer is produced into a fiber structure.
A technique that's called electrospinning.
The material is formed in a very thin micrometer fiber mesh.
This material is then formed into the shape of a heart valve
that we also suture to a stand.
And a stand is a manner to deliver the form of a heart valve.
A stand is a manner to deliver the valve at the right size.
It can be used to fold the valve in a very small shape.
It's beautiful because we can really fold it.
So the system is based on a standard heart valve
which can be introduced via the groin
or via a very small incision in the body.
And by this we are able to replace heart valves
in a very fast and safe manner in many patients.
And under live imaging such as fluoroscopy or echo
we are then able in a very controlled manner
to deliver those valves to our patients.
You can discuss a lot about this.
When you will enter the stage of the patient
I think we can enter soon.
But it's risky to say this.
So that's not right.
2020 is where they are.
