Mechanobiomaterials:Mechanics-Guided Design of Epicardial Patch for Treating

In recent years,the field of mechanomaterials has emerged at the interface of mechanics,materials science,biology,medicine and data science,where materials are proactively designed or programmed to achieve targeted functionalities by leveraging the fundamental mechanics principles and force-geometry-property relationships.In the biological context,one may likewise introduce mechanobiomaterials as a field with the following goals:(1)proactive design or programming of materials for precisely mediating biomechanical environment of living systems for tissue repair/restoration;(2)proactive control/programming of living systems themselves by an external field via force-structure-function relationships.Here,we will discuss an example of research in mechanobiomaterials on using mechanics to guide the design of acellular epicardial patches for the treatment of myocardial infarction.This technology aims to employ a biocompatible material patch to help reverse left ventricular remodeling and restore heart function after myocardial infarction by increasing the mechanical integrity of damaged heart tissues.However,its application is currently limited by widely scattered therapeutic efficacy.Here,we develop a biomechanics-based simulation platform that allows us to test,design and optimize the performance of an epicardial patch.We show that the widely scattered therapeutic efficacy of this technology can be attributed to a“pre-strain sensitivity”caused by attaching an elastic patch to a dynamically beating heart.To mitigate this challenge,we introduce a viscoelastic epicardial patch,designed at the so-called‘gel point’of the material,that effectively accommodates the cyclic deformation of the myocardium.This then leads to the fabrication and experimentally validated epicardial patch that outperforms all existing ones in restoring heart function after both acute and subacute myocardial infarction in rats.Our study also demonstrates the potential of employing viscoelastic interfaces for better integration of synthetic materials with biological tissues.