Bioinspired Heart Valve Prosthesis Made by Silicone Additive Manufacturing

Synthetic implants made by traditional fabrication routes are not patient specific and rarely match the performance of their biological counterparts. We present an additive manufacturing approach for the digital fabrication of tissue-like aortic heart valves featuring customizable geometry and leaflet architectures that resemble those of native valve tissue... ...Flow was driven by a forward pressure of 100 mmHg imposed across the valve using a pulsatile testing machine (PD2010; ViVitro, Victoria, BC, Canada)... ...The ability to fabricate synthetic implants with tailored designs at multiple length scales is a key contribution toward the digital fabrication of functional implants that perform on par with native body parts...