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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
S. Gerecht (ed.), Biophysical Regulation of Vascular Differentiation and
Assembly, Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99319-5_6
Chapter 6
Strategies for Tissue Engineering
Vascularized Cardiac Patches to Treat
Myocardial Infarctions
Justin Morrissette-McAlmon, Robert N. Hawthorne, Shawna Snyder,
and Warren L. Grayson
6.1 Introduction
Myocardial infarction (MI) affects more than 1.3 million Americans each year [7].
MI, caused by thrombotic occlusion of coronary arteries, often results in heart failure, cardiac rupture, and death due to the limited regenerative capacity of human
myocardium [127]. A lack of blood flow to the myocardium during MI results in
necrosis of cardiac myocytes, which leads to the subsequent release of their intracellular contents, activating resident macrophages, and initiating an inflammatory
cascade [31, 32]. This inflammatory cascade further damages cardiac myocytes and
leads to destruction of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Recent advances, which
J. Morrissette-McAlmon · R. N. Hawthorne
Translational Tissue Engineering Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD, USA
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD, USA
S. Snyder
Department of Art as Applied to Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD, USA
W. L. Grayson (*)
Translational Tissue Engineering Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD, USA
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD, USA
Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of
Engineering, Baltimore, MD, USA
Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT), Johns Hopkins University School of Engineering,
Baltimore, MD, USA
e-mail: wgrayson@jhmi.edu